Movilidad Amable – Buses
Modernizing Public Transport: Lessons Learned from Major Bus Improvements in Latin America and Asia
Capacidad en sistemas de transporte masivo en buses – desarrollo de fórmulas y aplicación al caso de TransMilenio de Bogotá
Evaluation of the Delhi bus corridor: lessons learnt and recommendations for improvement
Bus rapid transit (BRT) has extensive applications in South and North America, Europe and the Far East, but it is a novel concept for South Asia. One of the initial projects in India, the Delhi Bus Corridor, has been controversial: media outlets highlighted problems for the general traffic and safety, while user surveys showed improved perception by bus users, bicyclists and pedestrians. The discussion of the benefits and problems of the corridor has been mostly based in perceptions and prejudices. The authors conducted an independent evaluation to contribute with technical arguments to this discussion and to provide suggestions for the corridor improvement. The results were also intended to contribute to the understanding of the BRT concept in the Indian context. The authors conclude that the Delhi bus corridor has improved people mobility along the initial stretch, but requires significant performance, safety and overall quality enhancements. The project only comprised major changes in infrastructure but lacked of integrated implementation of service plans, technologies and operations. User and community education was also insufficient. In addition to ongoing improvements, the authors identified the need to: i) establish a quality improvement program measuring the system performance, ii) focus on improving reliability and comfort; and iii) reevaluate the bus service plans to provide a better match of the supply and demand. The authors also recommend using median bus lanes with strong segregation as the preferred option for bus priority in Delhi. The bus corridor in Delhi provides invaluable experience for the enhancement of transit facilities and services in India and beyond.
TransMilenio de Bogotá, un sistema de alto desempeño e impacto positivo – principales resultados de evaluación ex-post de las fases I y II
The macrobus system of Guadalajara, Mexico: an evolved concept in BRT planning and implementation for medium capacity corridors
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is rapidly growing as an effective alternative for medium and high capacity corridors in developing countries. The Guadalajara BRT system represents an important reference for transit professionals considering low cost, rapid implementation, high impact transit alternatives. The initial 16 km line in Calzada Independencia, started operations on March 2009 and has received high ratings by the users. It includes 27 stations, 41 articulated buses and 103 feeder buses. The system operates at a high frequency with a relatively high commercial speed of 21 km/hr. It carries 127,000 passengers/day and 5,000 passengers per hour in the peak load section. Total capital investment was USD 61 million (USD 3.8 million/km). The BRT corridor positively compares with rail alternatives. The authors evaluated both the characteristics and the performance of the system as compared with high-end BRT paradigms. The corridor meets most of the high-end BRT components. Nevertheless, it did not start with all the elements in place. The corridor has also achieved important advances in performance. There is a need to continuously report performance indicators, mainly user perception, reliability, and comfort, so management actions for continuous improvement can be taken. The project was possible due to the strong political leadership; the support of a knowledgeable technical advisory team with international practical experience; adequate level of funding for planning and implementation; and a systematic approach that combines infrastructure, vehicles, operations and technology.
Bus rapid transit in Curitiba, Brazil: A look at the outcome after 35 years of bus-oriented development
Curitiba, the world’s cradle for bus rapid transit (BRT), is an affluent city in Brazil. Its integrated transit network (RIT) is one of the most successful bus transit systems in the Western Hemisphere. RIT is the result of 35 years of continuous upgrades to bus service, which ultimately led to the creation of the BRT concept and lent structure to Curitiba’s urban development. The recently inaugurated Green Line (Linha Verde) is the backbone of a renewed urban structural concept, with a linear park and the redevelopment of low-density, industrial properties. The line takes full advantage of evolved BRT concepts, such as cleaner vehicles and fuels and the introduction of passing lanes at stations to increase capacity and improve commercial speeds. The success of Curitiba derives from a mix of political leadership, innovation, pragmatism, technocracy, and continuity. This paper presents Curitiba’s main transit milestones over time, barriers to planning and implementation, and measures adopted to solve or mitigate them. A series of recommendations includes (a) improvements in the delivery of quality of service to transit users, (b) conduct of a homebased origin-destination survey to identify the mobility pattern within the metropolitan area, and (c) consideration of value capture mechanisms and public-private partnerships in transit projects.
Curitiba, the cradle of bus rapid transit
Curitiba is the only city in Brazil that has directed its growth by integrating urban transportation, land-use development and environmental preservation. Since the 1970s Curitiba’s administrators have constantly achieved innovations with the city’s bus-based transit system through performance and capacity improvements. Originally, the bus system evolved from conventional buses in mixed traffic to busways, which were later fitted with at-level boarding, prepayment and articulated buses, creating the first full bus rapid transit system in the world. Later, the city introduced high capacity bi-articulated buses and electronic fare ticketing systems. In 2009 the integrated bus system was upgraded, again, with the introduction of the Green Line, its sixth BRT corridor which includes the operation of 100 per cent bio-diesel articulated buses. In 2010 Curitiba retrofitted one of the existing corridors, improving its performance to levels that are typical of metro systems. System operation will be further enhanced with advanced traffic management and user information systems.
No Car Lanes or Bus Lanes – which is best? An evaluation of priority lanes in Tyne and Wear
Bus priority covers a wide range of measures intended to speed up the progress of buses (and other selected groups of users, particularly the emergency services and sometimes taxis) and avoid congestion, especially in urban areas. The implementation of No Car Lanes as a method of allocating space on the highway is a relatively new […]
The effect of OD trip dispersion versus concentration in express service design
In public transit systems with high demand levels, the use of express bus services that serve only a subset of stops along certain routes would seem to be a promising alternative given the benefits they offer to both users and operators. In actual practice, express services in systems such as Transmilenio (Bogota, Colombia), Transantiago (Santiago, Chile), and Metro Rapid (Los Angeles, CA) have proven to be highly appealing. This raises the question about when express services are a reasonable option. Previous work has focused on how some characteristics of the demand structure of a corridor affects the benefits that express services can yield, showing that the load profile shape and the average trip length are crucial. This work presents some evidence that also the dispersion of the demand among different OD pairs (keeping the load profile and the total number of trips constant) affects the potential benefits of express services. As expected the more concentrated the demand into few OD pairs, the more cost savings that can be obtained. To answer this question we developed a methodology to generate OD matrices that share all relevant attributes but differ in variability among OD flows. Thirteen matrices were generated and their optimal sets of bus services with their respective frequencies were obtained. Using the coefficient of variation as a measure of matrix variability, we confirmed that more demand variability (i.e. more flow concentration) gives room to more express services and lower social costs.
Choosing the right express services for bus corridor with capacity restrictions
In public transit systems with high demand levels, the use of express bus services that serve only a subset of stops along certain routes appears to be a promising alternative given the benefits that they offer to both users and operators. In practice, express services in systems such as Transmilenio (Bogota, Colombia), Transantiago (Santiago, Chile), and Metro Rapid (Los Angeles, California) have proved highly appealing. To determine what types of express services would be attractive on a bus corridor given the characteristics of its demand, four parameters are defined for identifying corridor demand profiles: the base load profile shape, the scale of demand, the demand imbalance between the outbound and inbound directions, and the average trip length. A series of indicators was also defined to measure the potential benefits of express services in the scenarios studied. The results of the experimental simulations show that a crucial parameter for determining the potential benefits of express services is the average trip length along the corridor. The incorporation of express services is particularly attractive in corridors with demand profiles that increase or decrease monotonically. In addition, the results suggest that in other cases, the complexity of the demand shape could allow for more complex express service patterns.
Design of limited-stop services for an urban bus corridor with capacity constraints
In high-demand bus networks, limited-stop services promise benefits for both users and operators, and have proven their attractiveness in systems such as Transmilenio (Bogota, Colombia) and Transantiago (Santiago, Chile). The design of these services involves defining their itinerary, frequency and vehicle size, yet despite the importance of these factors for the network’s efficiency, no published works appear to provide the tools for designing high-frequency unscheduled services on an urban bus corridor, minimizing social costs.
This paper presents an optimization approach that minimizes these costs in terms of wait time, in-vehicle travel time and operator cost. Various optimization models are formulated that can accommodate the operating characteristics of a bus corridor, given an origin–destination trip matrix and a set of services that are a priori attractive. The models then determine which of these services should be offered at what frequencies and with which type of vehicles. A case study in which the model is applied to a real-world case of a bus corridor in the city of Santiago, Chile, is presented and the results are analyzed. Finally, the model is used on two different demand scenarios establishing which type of services tend to be good candidates on each case and providing preliminary insights on the impact of some key parameters.
Competing for level of service in the provision of mobility services: concepts, processes and measures
One of the most striking problems societies currently deal with is to assure adequate quality standards while improving accessibility within and between cities. In addition there is also a growing awareness that, to achieve a sustainable balance between private and public means of mobility, policies have to be able to send the correct signals in order to induce users adaptive behaviour, which in turn will provide the system with a reliable feedback on the needs for further investment and expansion of transport facilities. The definition and measurement of quality of service of the transport system is thus an objective aimed by both users and producers and it is often represented by the rather holistic concept of Level of Service (LoS). However, the LoS concept is not consciously used by users, on the contrary the user concentrates her comparative evaluation on what is simply known as quality. It is the planner that translates planned quality into LoS concept. So, LoS is a concept at the interface between the provider and the user. Given the interface character of the LoS concept an accounting framework for LoS should thus take into account the need to segregate the evaluation for passengers and freight transport and also distinguish between types of travellers in the case of passenger transport and types of commodities or logistic families in the case of freight transport. Moreover the bridge between the planner and the user view must be ensured. This paper reports the results of a research work dedicated to this topic.
Optimization of public transportation systems
Public transportation systems are intrinsically associated with a more sustainable motorized urban mobility. However, many cities struggle to offer their citizens a system providing high level of service. This article introduces the complexity involved with designing and operating a transit system going from the high-level strategic decisions to the low-level control mechanisms.
Critical issues in the design of contractual relations for transport infrastructure development
The increasing use of Public–Private Partnerships (PPP) arrangements in the provision of transport infrastructure seems to be a trend all over the world with a very particular incidence in Europe. The arguments supporting these public decisions are several and their validity varies with the different realities where these instruments are applied. The paper highlights the critical issues around the design and implementation of PPPs in the transportation sector and makes a brief presentation of the rational behind the structure of papers presented in this special issue.
Future challenges for transport infrastructure pricing in PPP arrangements
In this paper we report the conclusion of a research project dedicated to pricing regimes in public-private partnership contracts for the provision of transport infrastructure (Macário et al., 2009). Several elements have been brought to the bulk of knowledge that supports the design and implementation of public-private partnership in the transport sector. These developments have been achieved in the following domain:
• Understand difficulties of price setting within the PPP environment, given the potential conflict of interest among the different parties engaged, go beyond the discussion of first best versus second-best price setting mechanisms.
• Understand the role of government and regulators in the performance of a PPP.
• Translate the issue of asymmetries of information between parties into a risk taking language.
• Devise alternative contractual designs that will enable competitive price setting.
• Understand that a structural element is missing to conciliate the views of the different stakeholders over a PPP: a bridge between infrastructure costs and charges.
The objective of this paper is to overview the main challenges ahead of transport infrastructure pricing, considering the current and likely future policies as well as the field constraints. Moreover, a proposal is formulated to overcome some of the current pitfalls associated to transport infrastructure pricing.
On the development of public transit in large cities
This article presents a summary of the analyses and set of recommendations given by a committee of transit specialists gathered by the Minister of Transport of Chile aiming at improving Transantiago, the new transit system recently inaugurated for Santiago. This summary focuses on those recommendations directed towards improving the efficiency, service quality and sustainability of mass public transportation systems in major cities in the developing world and that could be implemented in a short term (within two years). Three broad dimensions of public transit are considered: competition and regulation; investment, financing, fares and subsidies; and the operation and use of infrastructure, design, inspection and control. Although the study grew out of the needs and characteristics of a city such as Santiago (Chile), and of the virtues and deficiencies of Transantiago, much of the analyses and recommendations could be adopted and implemented in the major cities of developed countries in Europe, North America and Asia.
Decision making process in successful city-wide bus reforms – same story repeats in three continents
The objective of this paper is to synthesize information from successful city-wide bus system reforms in three world cities, London (Europe), Sao Paulo (Latin America) and Seoul (Asia). All reviewed systems improved system wide ridership, significantly improved conditions for commuters and produced other positive externalities such as reducing air pollution and improving traffic safety. The reforms were undertaken amidst varying political, economic and social contexts. The main focus of the reviews was to identify the common elements in successful reform processes in an attempt to assist planners and decision makers implementing city-wide bus system reforms. Individual case studies were prepared for each city and are presented in separate documents. The reviews are based on material available on the internet. The following seven aspects or commonalties stood out as the key factors for implementing successful bus system reforms across the three cities.
1. Strong Political Leadership in the Decision Making process
2. Strong local technical institution developing demand based route planning
3. Implementing bus Priority and/or building segregated infrastructure for buses
4. Use of Technology
5. Innovations in contracting and tendering processes
6. Need for managed subsidies to improve quality of service
7. System Performance Monitoring and User Feedback.
The paper is divided in three sections. The first section provides a short description and indicator information about the performance of bus systems in each city. The second section examines each of the seven commonalties for each system. The final section summarizes the learning from the three systems.
A importancia de simular sistemas Bus Rapid Transit
Cresce o interesse por sistemas BRT tanto nas cidades dos países em desenvolvimento como nas nações desenvolvidas. Mais de 70 sistemas já foram implantados no mundo e o Brasil pretende inaugurar 500 km para a Copa do Mundo de 2014 e Jogos Olímpicos de 2016. O desempenho desses sistemas varia muito em função da configuração de projeto, podendo transportar até 45.000 passageiros/h/sentido. As estações e as interseções são os principais gargalos a limitar o desempenho de um BRT e, nem todos os corredores de BRT implantados no mundo foram projetados de forma a propiciar o seu melhor rendimento, havendo sempre margem para introduzir melhorias. Logo, é importante dispor de ferramental que propicie antecipar os problemas gerados por uma determinada configuração de projeto. Esse artigo apresenta o EMBARQ BRT Simulator, um modelo microscópico de simulação especialmente desenvolvido para representar o desempenho de sistemas de BRT sob uma variedade de configurações físicas e operacionais. O simulador foi calibrado com dados de Curitiba e Porto Alegre e foi empregado para testar e aprimorar os projetos dos corredores TransCarioca, no Rio de Janeiro e de Arequipa, no Peru. No caso do TransCarioca, o estudo demonstrou que, com pequenos ajustes no projeto, é possível aumentar a capacidade de 20 para 30 mil passageiros/h/sentido atendendo assim a demanda prevista para os Jogos Olímpicos de 2016. Em Arequipa, a simulação revelou a necessidade de antecipar a introdução de uma linha adicional de forma a aliviar a saturação no centro histórico da cidade que é patrimônio da humanidade.
Aproximación continua al fenómeno de apelotonamiento de buses
Los sistemas de transporte público urbano son susceptibles a perturbaciones en su operación que pueden llevar al apelotonamiento de los buses, afectando seriamente los niveles de servicio percibidos por los usuarios. De esta manera, resulta necesario analizar y comprender el fenómeno de formación de pelotones, para poder así definir estrategias de control. En este trabajo se propone un modelo continuo de la operación de los buses para el análisis del sistema, así como una sencilla estrategia de control cuya implementación no requiere de información en tiempo real. Las simulaciones de esta estrategia arrojan en promedio ahorros en tiempos de espera de los usuarios en torno a 33% y reducción en la variabilidad de los intervalos entre buses en torno a 50%.
Comparing operator and users costs of light rail, heavy rail and bus rapid transit over a radial public transport network
A model to compare three alternative forms of public transport – light rail, heavy rail and bus rapid transit – is developed for an urban network with radial lines emanating from the borders to the city centre. The theoretical framework assumes an operation aimed at minimising the total cost associated with public transport service provision, which encompasses both operator and users costs. The decision variables are the number of lines (networkdensity) and the frequency per period for each mode. This approach has no prejudices a priori in respect of whether a specified delivery scenario is aligned with existing modal reputation. Rather, we establish the conditions under which a specific transit mode should be preferred to another in terms of the operator (supply) and user (demand) side offerings. The model is applied using data from Australian cities, suggesting that in most of the scenarios analysed a high standard bus service is the most cost-effective mode, because it provides lower operator costs (infrastructure, rolling stock and operating cost), access time costs (due to a larger number of lines) and waiting time cost (due to larger frequencies of operation). A railmode, such as light rail or heavy rail, may have a lower total cost only if it is able to run faster than bus rapid transit, and the difference in speed is enough to outweigh the bus advantage on operator cost and access and waiting times.
Restating modal investment priority with an improved model for public transport analysis
We compare analytically and numerically the optimised performance of different urban public transport modes for three objectives: total cost minimisation, profit maximisation, and welfare maximisation. We find that under optimal operation, buses provide lower waiting time and operator costs, therefore the only possible advantage for rail is providing a lower in-vehicle time cost if trains are faster. Using Australian data, we found that bus rapid transit provides a lower total cost, higher profit and welfare, up to their capacity. Introducing passengers dislike of crowding and train-specific attraction elements might make Heavy Rail the most cost effective mode for high levels of demand.
Service reliability measurement using automated fare card data – Application to the London Underground
This paper explores the potential of using automated fare card data to quantify the reliability of service as experienced by passengers of rail transit systems. The distribution of individual passenger journey times can be accurately estimated for those systems requiring both entry and exit fare card validation. With the use of this information, a set of service reliability measures is developed that can be used to routinely monitor performance, gain insights into the causes of unreliability, and serve as an input into the evaluation of transit service. An estimation methodology is proposed that classifies performance into typical and nonrecurring conditions, which allows analysts to estimate the level of unreliability attributable to incidents. The proposed measures are used to characterize the reliability of one line in the London Underground under typical and incident-affected conditions with the use of data from the Oyster smartcard system for the morning peak period. A validation of the methodology with the use of incident-log data confirms that a large proportion of the unreliability experienced by passengers can be attributed to incidentrelated disruptions. In addition, the study revealed that the perceived reliability component of the typical Underground trip exceeds its platform wait time component and equals about half of its on-train travel time as well as its station access and egress time components, suggesting that sizable improvements in overall service quality can be attained through reliability improvements.
Reliability improvement in short headway transit services – schedule- and headway-based holding strategies
Improving service reliability is becoming a key focus for most public transport operators. One common operational strategy is holding. Holding vehicles can improve reliability, resulting in shorter travel times and less crowding. In this paper both schedule-based and headway-based holding strategies in short headway services are analyzed. Despite significant attention to holding in the current literature, some important aspects were not previously researched. The main new variables are maximum holding time, reliability buffer time, and, in the case of schedule-based holding, percentile value used to design the schedule. A real line in the Hague (Tram Line 9), Netherlands, and hypothetical lines are analyzed with various levels of running time variability. Headway-based and schedule-based holding have the largest effect if deviations are high. When schedule-based holding is applied with a maximum of 60-s holding time, the optimal value of the percentile value becomes about 65% for all lines analyzed. When no maximum holding time is applied, schedule-based holding is more effective; there is no difference when the maximum holding time is set to 60 s. This research also shows the effect of holding on crowding: an average level of irregularity of 20% could decrease to 15%, enabling either smaller capacity slack or less crowding.
Questioning the need for full amortization in PPP contracts for transport infrastructure
PPP contracts most often have durations of between 20 and 35 years, but in some cases even longer. The main reason for this is the wish of the Public side to minimize its financial contribution, by including in the contract many years of revenue generation by the project to help cover the investment contribution of the private partner. Implicit however is the need to fully amortize the initial investment, which in many countries is even included in the relevant legislation.
PPP contracts are normally framed around the delivery of a range of services during the lifetime of the contract, those services requiring the initial construction or recovery of an expensive infrastructure. The specification of the financial clauses of the contract requires the estimation of demand for those services over the period of the contract and this is usually taken as the major incidence of uncertainty in the contract. Indeed, experience shows that demand forecasts often fail substantially, in many cases by more than 20%, mostly by excess, as State side project promoters (and the bidding private partners) tend to be excessively optimistic about the development of such demand.
But when we consider the nature of these contracts we should recognize the existence of at least two other very important types of uncertainty: first, the socially desirable scope and specification of the services to be offered as technology and social preferences evolve; and second, the policy guidelines relative to the total quantity and the social distribution of those services, as that quantity may be causing congestion in other parts of the system, or it may become important to (positively or negatively) discriminate some user segments.
In both cases, it is almost impossible to foresee at the time of writing the initial contract if, when and in what direction such types of socially beneficial changes in the provision of the services would intervene, but this rigidness may bear a great loss of social welfare in relation to a more adjustable framework. This criticism affects not only PPPs but all kinds of concession contracts with long duration, so it is not the “partnership” element that must be questioned but rather the duration of the contract.
An alternative way is relatively straightforward: abandon the assumption that these contracts must provide full amortization of the infrastructure, which allows adoption of contracts with a shorter life, and the use of multiple such contracts over the lifecycle of the infrastructure.
The first generation contract would still have to face the full cost of the construction, but the private partner would receive the unamortized part at the end of that contract, to be paid by the State, directly from the public budget if no more private participation is wanted, or indirectly through the acquisition fee for the contract to be paid by the partner to the second life segment. But, crucially, the State recovers the right to re-specify the terms of the service to be provided without the need for any indemnity, and also the uncertainty associated with the evolution of demand in that period will be much smaller, as this will be my then a mature system in operation.
This may seem to increase the transaction costs for the State as more contracts (although of a similar type, especially from the second onwards) may have to be negotiated and signed. But if we take into consideration the difficulties of the frequently needed renegotiations of long duration contracts and the conditions of asymmetry of information in which the State normally finds itself in such cases, we will conclude that, besides avoiding the loss of welfare due to the poor fit of the contract after 20 years or so, this solution after all may also reduce the transaction costs associated with negotiations over the duration of the traditional contracts.
