Bus Rapid Transit
Bus System Design Features That Significantly Improve Service Quality And Cost Efficiency
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Victoria Transport Policy Institute
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Updated 25 January 2010
This chapter describes “Bus Rapid Transit,” which refers to bus transit systems with various features that improve service quality.
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) refers to a set of bus system design features that provide high quality and cost-effective transit service. These include:
In the past, bus transit was generally considered an inferior service, to be provided for people who lack alternatives, and in communities that cannot afford “better” transportation services such as rail or private automobile. This creates a self-fulfilling prophesy, resulting in reduced investment and support for bus transit, and an emphasize on cost minimization, that leads to inferior service. Bus Rapid Transit represents a shift in perception, so decision-makers recognize that buses can provide high quality service which can attract discretionary travelers (those who have alternative travel options). For many trips, BRT can provide faster and more direct service than urban rail, since grade separated Quickways can accommodate multiple bus routes from various destinations, reducing the need for transfers (Hoffman 2008).
Bus Rapid Transit is considered a more affordable alternative to Rail for improving transit service quality and attracting travelers who would otherwise drive on congested urban corridors. It was initially implemented in less developed countries such as Brazil and Columbia during the 1990s, but the concept has become widely accepted by transportation planners and transit advocates throughout the world. However, it is wrong to consider this simply a debate between the merits of bus versus rail transit. Each is appropriate in certain circumstances (see discussion in Litman 2006).
Bus Rapid Transit systems are usually implemented through a cooperative effort involving local planning agencies and transit service providers. To be effective it requires coordination of roadway design and management, bus purchasing, transit operations, local land use planning decisions, transit marketing and TDM programs.
New North American BRT systems have attracted higher ridership than would be expected based on standard modeling of service frequency, travel speed and fare. It is now common practice to apply up to a 12-minute in-vehicle travel time “bias constant” for rail rapid transit (that is, the travel times for mode-split modeling purposes would be 12 minutes shorter for rail in comparison to conventional local bus service), and (Kittleson & Associates, 2007).
Bus Rapid Transit requires that bus transit be given increased respect and priority in transportation planning decisions, including investments, roadway management and land use development. Where transit service quality is currently poor, BRT implementation may require policy and institutional reforms, such as changes in transportation planning and roadway management practices (to give buses priority in traffic); vehicle purchasing; transit regulations and contacting (to maintain a high quality of service); and urban design (to increase development near BRT routes).
Where it is effectively implemented, Bus Rapid Transit can significantly improve transit service and increase transit ridership, particularly under congested urban conditions (Currie, 2005; Evans and Pratt 2007; Litman 2007a), although there is some debate as to how BRT compares with rail transit service (Litman 2004). The table below summarizes the total ridership growth and portion of new transit riders achieved by various BRT systems.
Table 1 BRT Ridership Impacts (BC Transit, Unpublished Research)
|
BRT System |
Ridership Growth |
Portion of New Transit Users |
|
Vancouver 96B |
30% |
23% |
|
Las Vegas Max |
35-40% |
24% |
|
Boston Silver Line |
84% |
NA |
|
Los Angeles |
27-42% |
NA |
|
Oakland |
66% |
32% |
BRT tends to attract more riders than lower quality bus transit service, and less than Light Rail Transit service on the same corridor, but in situations in which BRT provides greater service coverage (such as dispersed destinations with low to moderate transit demand), it may attract more total riders than rail for a given investment. New North American Studies of ridership based upon applying elasticities to arterial street BRT lines in Boston, Los Angeles, and Vancouver (BC) found that actual ridership was about 20% higher than what would be predicted by modeling factors such as travel time, travel frequency and fare levels. Accordingly, a 25% increase in base ridership above the gains obtained by elasticity computations is a suggested upper limit for full-featured BRT. Kittleson & Associates (2007) recommend applying up to a 10-minute in-vehicle travel time “bias constant” for BRT (that is, the travel times for mode-split modeling purposes would be 10 minutes shorter for BRT compared to conventional bus service) due to factors such as more attractive vehicles, nicer Stations and improved user information.
Table 2 Travel Impact Summary
|
Travel Impact |
Rating |
Explanation |
|
Reduces total traffic. |
3 |
Can reduce automobile use. |
|
Reduces peak period traffic. |
3 |
Tends to be attractive for commute trips. |
|
Shifts peak to off-peak periods. |
0 |
|
|
Shifts automobile travel to alternative modes. |
3 |
|
|
Improves access, reduces the need for travel. |
2 |
Can encourage higher-density, clustered land use. |
|
Increased ridesharing. |
0 |
|
|
Increased public transit. |
3 |
|
|
Increased cycling. |
1 |
Can support cycling. |
|
Increased walking. |
2 |
Supports pedestrian travel. |
|
Increased Telework. |
0 |
|
|
Reduced freight traffic. |
0 |
|
Rating from 3 (very beneficial) to –3 (very harmful). A 0 indicates no impact or mixed impacts.
A number of benefits and costs should be considered when evaluating BRT (ICF International 2009). By improving service quality BRT provides direct benefits to transit users. By making transit more attractive to discretionary travelers on congested urban corridors, BRT can provide various benefits, including reduced traffic congestion, road and parking facility cost savings, consumer cost savings, improved mobility options for non-drivers, increased safety, reduced pollution, and support for urban infill. Many BRT features improve operating efficiency, increase transit demand, and reduce unit costs of providing transit service. Hossain and Kennedy (2008) estimated that BRT could reduce corridor transportation energy consumption and related pollution emissions by 29% in the short-run and 45% over the long run, compared with general purpose lanes.
BRT implementation requires various investments in vehicles, facilities and increased management responsibilities. BRT may require reducing parking or general traffic lanes, and it may change traffic patterns in ways that may harm some people (such as businesses that lose on-street parking). The magnitude of these incremental costs varies and depends on how they are Evaluated. Kittleson & Associates (2007) provides generic estimates of BRT component costs, such as separate lanes and special vehicles.
Bruun (2005) compares BRT and LRT annual operating costs using U.S. data. For a typical agency, both BRT and LRT have lower operating costs on a per space-kilometer basis during base periods than regular buses. Both the lower BRT and LRT cost estimate are comparable for adding service during peak periods. Using the higher cost estimate, peak BRT costs 24% more than LRT. For trunk line capacities below about 1,600 spaces per hour the headway versus cost tradeoff favors BRT. Above 2000 spaces per hour, BRT headways become so short that Traffic Signal Priority may not be effective and operating speeds may decrease. The marginal cost of adding off-peak BRT service is substantially less than the average cost of regular buses, LRT less yet. Peak Fleet Size seems to be an important driver of costs.
Critics claim that BRT is less effective the rail at attracting transit ridership, particularly discretionary riders, and so tends to be less cost effective overall (NJARP, 2006). BRT appears to contribute less than rail transit to Transit Oriented Development, although the differences are difficult to quantify and may be minimized with supportive, New Urbanist land use policies (Hensher, 2007).
Table 3 Benefit Summary
|
Objective |
Rating |
Comments |
|
Congestion Reduction |
3 |
Reduces automobile use on congested corridors. |
|
Road & Parking Savings |
3 |
Reduces road space and parking requirements. Buses may increase road wear costs. |
|
Consumer Savings |
3 |
Provides affordable mobility. |
|
Transport Choice |
3 |
Increases transport choice for non-drivers. |
|
Road Safety |
2 |
Tends to be safer than driving overall. |
|
Environmental Protection |
2 |
Tends to reduce air pollution. |
|
Efficient Land Use |
2 |
Tends to discourage sprawl. |
|
Community Livability |
2 |
Contributes to neighborhood livability. |
Rating from 3 (very beneficial) to –3 (very harmful). A 0 indicates no impact or mixed impacts.
Bus Rapid Transit tends to benefit a broad range of people, including those who already use bus transit, those who shift to bus due to improved service, and those who continue to drive but experience less traffic and parking congestion. Because people who are economically, socially and physically disadvantaged tend to rely heavily on bus transit, BRT tends to support Equity Objectives. It improves Transportation Options, provides Basic Mobility, and increases Affordability.
Table 4 Equity Summary
|
Criteria |
Rating |
Comments |
|
Treats everybody equally. |
1 |
Provides benefits that are valued by most groups. |
|
Individuals bear the costs they impose. |
0 |
Requires subsidies, but often less than for driving. |
|
Progressive with respect to income. |
3 |
Provides affordable mobility for lower-income people. |
|
Benefits transportation disadvantaged. |
3 |
Provides mobility for non-drivers. |
|
Improves basic mobility. |
3 |
Provides basic mobility. |
Rating from 3 (very beneficial) to –3 (very harmful). A 0 indicates no impact or mixed impacts.
Bus Rapid Transit is particularly appropriate on congested urban corridors, although it can be integrated with other transport services, such as longer-distance bus routes and Park & Ride lots, and so can help improve transportation throughout an urban region.
Table 5 Application Summary
|
Geographic |
Rating |
Organization |
Rating |
|
Large urban region. |
3 |
Federal government. |
2 |
|
High-density, urban. |
3 |
State/provincial government. |
2 |
|
Medium-density, urban/suburban. |
2 |
Regional government. |
3 |
|
Town. |
1 |
Municipal/local government. |
3 |
|
Low-density, rural. |
0 |
Business Associations/TMA. |
3 |
|
Commercial center. |
3 |
Individual business. |
1 |
|
Residential neighborhood. |
2 |
Developer. |
1 |
|
Resort/recreation area. |
1 |
Neighborhood association. |
1 |
|
|
|
Campus |
2 |
Ratings range from 0 (not appropriate) to 3 (very appropriate).
Improved Transport Choice
Bus Rapid Transit supports and is supported by most other TDM strategies, particularly Transit Improvements, HOV Priority, Commute Trip Reduction programs, Transit Oriented Development, Nonmotorized Transportation Planning, and Parking Management. Bus Rapid Transit is often considered an alternative to Light Rail Transit.
Bus Rapid Transit requires support from various government agencies, businesses or local residents. Patrons and labor organizations are also affected.
Major barriers to BRT implementation include a lack of leadership, limited funds, automobile oriented land use planning, and stigma that is sometimes associated with buses.
Table 6 Myths of BRT (Wright, 2007)
|
Myth |
Reality |
|
BRT cannot compete with rail system capacity. |
Bogotá’s TransMilenio system moves 36,000 passengers per hour per direction while BRT corridors in Sao Paulo can also provide capacities over 30,000 passengers per hour per direction. This is more than all LRT systems and many metro systems. |
|
BRT is only appropriate for small cities with low population densities. |
BRT is implemented in many large cities, including Bogotá which has 7 million inhabitants, Manila, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur. |
|
BRT requires a great deal of road space and cannot be built in narrow roadways |
Design solutions exist for virtually every road space circumstance. Quito runs a BRT system through three metre wide streets in its historical centre. Even rail takes space, for example, support pillars for SkyTrain require a traffic lane. |
|
BRT cannot compete with rail options in terms of speed and travel time |
A US GAO study found that a comparison of BRT and LRT systems actually showed that BRT systems produced faster average speeds (US GAO, 2001). |
|
BRT uses vehicles with rubber tyres which is an inferior technology; customers will never accept BRT |
It is doubtful that anyone in Bogotá, Curitiba, or Quito feels that they have an “inferior technology”. The appearance of BRT stations, terminals and vehicles can all be made to appear as sophisticated and inviting as any rail option. |
|
BRT cannot deliver the transit-oriented development and land use advantages of rail |
Experience in cities such as Bogotá and Curitiba indicate that BRT can stimulate urban development around stations similar to rail transit, if given appropriate support. |
|
BRT is fine as a feeder service, but it cannot serve main corridors |
BRT can provide both feeder service and on high-density mainline urban corridors. |
Various publications, including Levinson (2003) and Wright (2007) provide guidance for implementing BRT. Best practices include:
|
A dog went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”
The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”
“But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.” |
For more examples and case studies see Levinson (2003) and Wright (2007) and the Bus Rapid Transit Exchange (www.fta.dot.gov/brt).
In recent years a number of Bus Rapid Transit projects have been implemented, resulting in benefits to users and increased ridership.
· Bus travel times on Boston’s Silver Line declined from 20-40 minutes down to a reliable 15 minutes, which doubled ridership during its first year of operation.
· Vancouver’s B-Line routes have experienced 20-25% ridership gains.
· Los Angeles express arterial bus service has reduced travel times by as much as 29%, resulting in ridership increases of nearly 40%.
The Adelaide O-Bahn is the world’s fastest guided busway, and at 12 kilometres the world’s longest. It originally opened in 1986 as a part of the Adelaide Metro in South Australia, shuttling over seven million passengers back and forth a year. The project cost around $98m Australian dollars. It takes roughly 20 minutes to travel the length of the busway. The busway runs from the Adelaide Central Business District (CBD) to Tea Tree Plaza, a shopping centre in Tea Tree Gully and traces through the Linear Park that runs from Walkerville to Modbury.
The technology behind the O-Bahn is remarkably simple and flexible. Specially modified buses with guide-wheels attached to the steering arms are used to travel on the O-Bahn, which enter by aligning the bus with the track which is made of concrete.
The buses are driven normally on ordinary streets. This technology allows the bus to travel at up to a speed of 100km/h. The system is capable of moving 18,000 people an hour in each direction. The O-Bahn consists of 5,800 sleepers, 5,600 pylons drilled to a depth of 3 metres, 4,200 track pieces, 25 bridges, 8 pedestrian overpasses and a 60 metre-long tunnel.
There is a current proposal to implement an O-Bahn in the Southern suburbs of Adelaide, rather than extending the rail system. This was proposed by the former State Transport Minister, Dorothy Kotz. There are suggestions about extending the current O-Bahn to Golden Grove.
(Eric Taub, The New York Times, September 14, 2000)
Thanks to new technology plus common sense, 70,000 commuters a day can now often outpace the drivers on nearby clogged freeways by traveling on two routes served by red Metro Rapid buses, powered by natural gas. Los Angeles County transportation officials have managed to shave as much as 25 percent off the travel time of a local bus trip by adopting technology that, among things, can keep green lights on just a little longer as the bus approaches – as long as doing that does not cause another set of traffic problems.
The regional authority decided to take action because a survey showed that speed was the biggest complaint of bus passengers. In just a few years, average bus speeds had declined 17 percent, to just 10 miles per hour from a torrid 12. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority learned through its surveys that buses spent half their time standing still, either at red lights or at bus stops, waiting for passengers to get on and off. Officials had tried to speed things up a decade earlier by equipping buses with special transmitters that would hold traffic lights on green until buses passed through. But that just backed up the traffic on cross-streets, so the initiative was abandoned.
In 1997, traffic officials heard about a similar effort in Curitaba, Brazil, that was successful because the system was smarter in several ways. For one thing, it held the lights for buses only when that did not cause other traffic snarls. Still, there was no guarantee that the system would work in Los Angeles. Curitaba was built to handle public transportation, while public transit in Los Angeles often appears to be an afterthought. Even though one million people ride buses each day in the county, the bus is the transportation mode of last resort for most Angelinos.
On June 24, the transit authority began a system that gives express buses priority at traffic signals. It first had to embed 210 antenna loops in the pavement at various spots along the route. As a bus passes over one of the loops, a $75 transmitter mounted on its front sends an identifying signal to an equipment box that controls the traffic light at the next intersection. The signal is also sent to a central control center downtown, so the bus can be tracked in the computer system.
But the $10 million project needed to find a way to ease the way for buses to clear intersections without tying up traffic on cross-streets. So the Los Angeles Department of Transportation wrote software that lets a green light be extended – held on green longer or switched to green earlier – for no more than 10 seconds. If several buses approach an intersection as the light is about the change, they can still get only 10 more seconds of green. Buses arriving later than that have to wait. And at important intersections, the green light can be extended in only every other cycle.
To prevent bus drivers from speeding up to make the system extend green lights, there are no visual indicators in the buses to tell drivers when some extra speed would accomplish that. The movement of each express bus is tracked in the authority’s bus control center downtown, both on a computer screen (using the transmitter signals) and through information from video cameras placed at strategic intersections throughout the region.
As a bus passes over a pair of electronic loops embedded in the street, its speed is calculated. Then its arrival time is transmitted via a cell phone link to an electronic display at the next bus stop. Buses are dispatched every 3 to 10 minutes. And if a Metro Rapid bus finishes its route quicker than scheduled, that’s fine. That just makes for a more contented rider. To prevent Metro Rapid buses from bunching up into packs, the central dispatcher radios the driver to slow down or speed up (without breaking the speed limit) to keep from getting too close to another bus.
The project has been successful so far. On the 16-mile Ventura Boulevard route, from Warner Center to Universal City, the average travel time has decreased by 25 percent, to 45 minutes from 1 hour. On the 26-mile route from Santa Monica through Beverly Hills to Montebello on the east side of the city, travel times have also dropped by 25 percent, to 1 1/2 hours from 2 hours. Arrival times for Metro Rapid buses are coordinated with the area’s new Red Line subway extension so that even during rush hour, Mr. Gephart said, a trip across the San Fernando Valley into Union Station can now be done in about one hour, often faster than a car journey.
Will the improvements brought about by this new technology be enough to persuade the middle classes, and not just people without cars, to use public transportation? “That’s what we’re hoping for,” Mr. Gephart said. The authority hopes to add 15 to 20 new express lines, he said, and transit systems around the country are calling him to find out how they can adapt the Los Angeles system to speed up their bus services.
Seoul, South Korea is a fast-growing Asian mega-city – its population increased from 5.4 million inhabitants in 1970 to over 10 million today, with 20 million in the metropolitan area. During this period the number of motor vehicles has increased by 46 times to nearly 3 million vehicles, causing severe traffic congestion, public health and pollution problems. To help solve these problems, beginning in 2002 Mayor Lee Myung-Bak and his team at the Seoul Development Institute embarked on a variety of transportation and land use innovations improve mobility alternatives and reduce private motorized trips. In July 2004 the city launched a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system that has dramatically improved the quality of public transport. Over 76 kilometers of median busways were constructed in 2004 (with a plan to expand this to 162.4 kilometers). Over 5,000 buses have installed GPS tracking technology to ensure improved customer service, and 815 buses have been converted to operate on natural gas. A smart card system is utilized to allow free transfers to different transit services.
A single BRT lane carries six times more persons than a mixed traffic lane. Travel times along the BRT corridors have been reduced by a factor of five. This led to an 11% increase in public transport use and a 27% reduction in traffic accidents during its first year of operation.
Study finds a slight improvement in traffic flow since the
opening of the Valley busway – although most motorists may not feel the change.
By Caitlin Liu, LA Times (www.latimes.com),
30 December 2005.
The
first attempt to determine if the new Orange Line busway has eased rush-hour
traffic has found an improvement in the morning commute on the 101 Freeway —
although one so small that most harried commuters probably haven’t noticed.
The study of the freeway, conducted by researchers at UC Berkeley on behalf of The
Times, determined that traffic through the south San Fernando Valley from 7
a.m. to 10 a.m. has sped up about 7% — from an average 43 mph to 46 mph. And
since the 14-mile busway opened Oct. 29, 2005 the amount of time that morning
commuters waste being stuck in congestion — defined as traffic slower than 35
mph — has declined about 14%, the study found.
It also found that congestion on the heavily traveled freeway is now beginning
about 11 minutes later than before the Orange Line opened, with the onset of
the morning slows shifting on average from 6:55 a.m. to 7:06 a.m.
The researchers were quick to point out that the changes are only shaving a few
minutes off a commute that can still take more than an hour and removing
perhaps a few hundred cars from a freeway that carries more than 7,000 vehicles
an hour during peak periods.
But they concluded that traffic on the freeway has improved because of the
Orange Line.
“The freeway is operating more efficiently,” said Hamed Benouar, director of
the California Center for Innovative Transportation at Berkeley, which is
primarily funded by the California Department of Transportation and conducts
research for other government organizations.
Researchers said that saving even a minute or two a day adds up over time and
results in less smog and a significant saving in gasoline. “When more vehicles
go through at higher speeds, the pollution is less,” Benouar said. “That has an
impact on the environment.”
The research finding is significant, because there had been questions about
whether the Orange Line, despite its high ridership, was actually taking people
out of their cars. The busway now handles about 16,400 passenger boardings a
day. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority estimated before the line opened
that it would have 5,000 to 7,000 daily boardings. But the MTA has acknowledged
that many Orange Line users had already been taking buses to get around, and
critics noted that the park-and-ride lots have been far from full.
Officials don’t know how many of the Orange Line riders used to take the 101.
The busway’s five parking lots, with a combined 3,200 spaces, are 25% filled or
less most days. Official estimates range from 500 to 800 parked cars, mostly in
the West Valley lots.
“Our
objective was to offer people an alternative to the freeway. Without a doubt,
we’ve gotten people out of their cars,” said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky,
a member of the MTA board of directors. “If you talk to people on that line,
they love it. If that has contributed to a reduction in congestion on the
Ventura Freeway, it just further validates the wisdom of this line.”
The Berkeley researchers made their conclusions after reviewing traffic data
from Caltrans sensors embedded in the freeway between Woodland Hills and Studio City. This stretch more or less parallels the path of the Orange Line, which runs
between Warner Center and the North Hollywood connection to the Red Line
subway. The study looked at freeway conditions from Tuesday through Thursday in
the weeks before the busway opened, compared with the weeks afterward. The
researchers excluded holiday periods when freeway usage was light, as well as
certain days when accidents made traffic unusually bad.
The Berkeley researchers found a paradox they consider interesting in traffic
on the 101. Although the commute has slightly improved, there are actually more
cars on the freeway during rush hours — indicating that the freeway is
operating more efficiently. Before the Orange Line opened, about 6,800 cars per
hour traveled east. Now, the number is about 7,300. The increase probably stems
from the way freeway meters work.
Because traffic in the West Valley is lighter, the downstream ramp meters —
which respond to traffic flow — are letting cars onto the freeway that
previously would have been waiting on onramps, said Gabriel Gomes, a
postdoctoral researcher who worked on the study. The ramp meters allow cars to
enter in an orderly fashion, enabling vehicles already on the freeway to travel
more smoothly and at higher speeds. More cars are also coming onto the freeway
from adjacent streets, because drivers are seeing shorter queues at onramps. “The
bus line is sucking users from the freeway, then the freeway is sucking users
from the arterials,” Gomes said.
MetroBus, Mexico City’s Bus Rapid Transit system, established June 2005, transports an average of 250,000 passengers a day during the week through 36 stations on Insurgentes Avenue, the city’s longest street. The system had replaced 350 older microbuses with 97 brand new articulated diesel buses that have eliminated over 35,000 tons of greenhouse gases and reduced passenger exposure to tailpipe emissions by 23-59%, according to recent studies by the Mexico City-based Center for Sustainable Transport/EMBARQ. The system has also managed to reduce travel time by an average of 33% as well as decrease accidents by 30%.
Another factor that distinguishes the MetroBus system from others is its flat fare. Passengers now pay $3.50 pesos (about $0.30 USD) per trip regardless of how far they travel, a departure from the previous distance-based system.
These positive changes have not gone unnoticed by passengers. In a poll also fielded by CTS/EMBARQ, MetroBus passengers gave the system an average approval rating of 8.2 out of 10, and 6% of passengers reported having switched from using cars since MetroBus was opened.
Perhaps the project’s most important accomplishment is the discussion it has spurred throughout the city about the need to invest in high quality public transport. Newly elected mayor Marcelo Ebrard has promised that his administration will build ten more MetroBus lines during his term.
A number of studies indicate that quality public transit service tends to increase nearby property values. Residential and commercial property near transit stations is typically worth 10-20% more than otherwise comparable land farther away, reflecting the value or transit accessibility and their ability to provide a catalyst for more accessibile, walkable urban villages, called Transit Oriented Development. Such impacts are generally associated with rail transit stations, but there is some evidence that, under the right conditions, BRT stations can have similar impacts. Rodriguez and Targa (2004) found that, after controlling for other factors, a reduction of 5 minutes walking time to BRT stations increases property prices 6.8% to 9.3% in Bogotá, Colombia. Munoz-Raskin (2007) found that middle-income households, who tend to use BRT most, are willing to pay 2.3% to 14.4% more for housing located close to Bogotá BRT stations, but lower-income households (which rely more on walking and mini-buses) and upper-class households (which rely more on automobile travel) do not. This suggests that to maximize BRT ridership and benefits planners should work with real estate developers to identify the best type of housing to locate nearby.
Portland, Oregon’s Streamline program includes various transit operational improvements that improve service quality and efficiency on designated Frequent Service routes. This $4.5 million program includes the installation of transit signal priority at 275 intersections and installation of signal priority emitters on buses; installing curb extensions; consolidating bus stops; removing bus pullouts; and improving service quality. The program has the following impacts:
Between 1999 and 2005, the streamlined routes’ service-hours increased 16.3% while ridership on those routes increased 18.2%. In contrast, over the same period, the number of vehicle-hours allocated to non-Frequent Service routes has decreased 2.4% and ridership on those routes has decreased 0.7%. This represents 12,000 additional weekday bus riders, which provide $1.7 million additional annual farebox revenue.
The Los Angeles area Metro Orange Line BRT system, which began operations in 2005, is exceeding ridership projections, reducing travel times, easing congestion, and attracting people out of their cars. The Orange Line is an exclusive busway, with one lane in each direction and signal priority to give them green lights at intersections serving primarily suburban, middle-class areas. It cost $350 million. It was expected to initially average 5,000 to 7,500 weekday boardings, growing to 22,000 by 2020, but it achieved the 2020 goal by its seventh month. Operating costs average$2.17 per boarding.
By Erico Guizzo, Spectrum Online (www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun07/5139)
The concept of a modern, high-capacity bus system is often called bus rapid transit (BRT). BRT differs from conventional bus operations in that the coaches—often newer, more comfortable vehicles—run on dedicated portions of roadways, and stations feature off-vehicle fare collection and slightly elevated platforms to speed up boarding. Proponents say BRT systems have lower construction costs, can be built in a quarter to half the time subways require, and their operating costs are almost always covered by fare collection, eliminating the need for subsidies. BRT also offers more flexibility, because routes can be adjusted as the city grows, different bus types can be deployed, and cars can be allowed to use bus lanes during weekends.
Now, there’s some debate about how many people BRT—or other systems, for that matter—can transport. One way transportation experts assess a system is by measuring its maximum throughput—much as a mechanical engineer would gauge the flow of water through a pipe. In that way, a single-lane BRT line is said to transport up to 15,000 passengers per hour in one direction, or nearly seven times as many as a freeway car lane. BRT’s capacity is similar to light rail’s but smaller than that of subway systems, some of which carry more than 50, 000 passengers per hour. Although it would be nice if every metropolis had ample subway service, building such infrastructure is often beyond a city’s means. Whereas construction costs for a light-rail line can run anywhere from $15 million to $25 million per kilometer and subway systems from $50 million to $200 million, BRT systems require from less than $1 million to $20 million.
Not all bus corridors in São Paulo are full-featured BRT systems. Indeed, it’s hard to characterize all of this city’s different busways. You can find here nearly all the different configurations a transportation planner could concoct. Segregated corridors in the middle of avenues? A handful. Dedicated bus lanes on the left of roadways? Four, built not long ago. São Paulo is even constructing a 20-meter-high elevated busway that snakes its way above traffic—a controversial project whose original design called for all-electric, computer-controlled buses but which will go into operation using diesel coaches with drivers at the wheels. (One critic called it a “drunken roller coaster that escaped from Playcenter [the local amusement park”)
During the past decade, São Paulo reorganized its maze of bus lines into a more efficient network: structural lines with high-capacity coaches running mostly radially toward the city’s center, and local lines with nimbler microbuses connecting neighborhood streets to other bus lines and subway and train stations. São Paulo’s 11 bus corridors became a key piece in this reorganization. Its two most successful, the 14-km-long Santo Amaro–Nove de Julho corridor and the 33-km-long São Mateus–Jabaquara corridor, each transport more than 200 000 passengers per day.
“São Paulo is the biggest laboratory in the world in terms of transportation in many ways,” says Darío Hidalgo, a transportation specialist with the global management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, in Bogotá, Colombia. He says that bus experiments in São Paulo and in another Brazilian city—Curitiba, which began constructing a pioneer BRT system more than 30 years ago—helped inspire other cities to develop their own rapid bus projects. Bogotá, with nearly 7 million people, chaotic traffic, and not a single subway line, completed in 2000 what many consider to be an exemplary BRT project: the 80-km-plus TransMilenio system, which can move 40 000 people per hour per direction using two lanes. “It’s a world record for buses,” says Hidalgo, who participated in the project.
Other cities that have built or are planning BRT systems include Boston, Cape Town, Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New Delhi, New York City, Ottawa, Paris, and Sydney. There are already 15 BRT systems operating in Asia—including those in Beijing, Jakarta, Nagoya, and Seoul—and 24 others soon to come. All these BRT systems may be very different in their design and operation, but they attempt to accomplish the same goals. One is getting people to use public transportation over private automobiles, thereby improving traffic and reducing tailpipe emissions. The other is providing a better way of getting around for those who don’t own cars. In most cities in the developing world, the carless are the majority of the population (70 percent in São Paulo, for example), so implementing an efficient bus system is also a matter of social equity.
How do planners in a megacity like São Paulo go about designing its transportation system? How do they know, say, where to build new busways? Many of the answers come from a conference room—nicknamed the “situation room”—at the headquarters of São Paulo’s metropolitan transportation agency. Indeed, improving transportation in São Paulo has been quite a war.
Use of public transportation had been declining for decades, but now for the first time its share is smaller than that of private transportation: 47 percent versus 53 percent, according to the last major government-sponsored survey. With more cars on the street, driving has only gotten worse. Rush-hour backups throughout the city routinely add up to more than 100 km. And every three minutes, an additional automobile joins the fray. Lined up bumper-to-bumper, all of São Paulo’s 5.5 million cars would form a queue some 20 000 km long, enough to go halfway around the world. It’s probably a good thing people don’t start out at the same time.
After locking itself away in the “situation room” for numerous meetings, a group of experts recently emerged with a major review of São Paulo’s transportation plans for the next 20 years. Pedro Benvenuto, who headed the review, says that the goal is to have transportation planning help reorganize the metropolis, especially by promoting the emergence of new job-dense areas outside the city’s center. While São Paulo has experienced the bulk of its population growth at the fringes of its metropolitan area, most jobs remained concentrated at central locations.
For the review, Benvenuto summoned transit officials, city planners, consultants, academics, and representatives from subway, rail, and bus companies. The work begins with the experts devising plans to increase access to public transportation, speed up existing services, build new infrastructure, and so on. Then it’s the modelers’ turn. This subgroup examines the proposed plans using an urban planning simulator called Tranus, an open-source program used by dozens of cities that’s like a kind of SimCity—the popular city-design game—minus the sleek graphics. The program simulates how transportation affects land use, and vice versa. To run it, the modelers feed in a digital representation of São Paulo’s roadways, a detailed map of the city’s real-estate characteristics, a database of daily trips for the entire population, and also social and economic indicators. Then they run dozens of simulations to assess the costs and benefits of different scenarios.
The group’s proposed review envisions an ideal 2025 city where public transportation ridership increases to about 60 percent, low-income people double the average number of daily trips they can afford, and even car drivers benefit, with average traffic speed increasing by 20 percent. The plan will require $20 billion in investments and calls for a significant expansion in all types of transportation infrastructure. Most resources will go into extending the subway network to 168 km from 60 km and the rail system to 372 km from 270 km. The bus system, which will continue to be the city’s largest people mover, is slated to receive an additional 366 km of dedicated lanes and 40 new transfer terminals. It’s an ambitious plan. But is it enough?
As any bus rider here will attest, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Many lines need better speed and consistency. Decrepit coaches (latas velhas, or old cans, some would call them) need to be replaced. And some busways need more lanes and enhanced stations to keep long, slow-moving lines of coaches from bogging down the whole system. For experts like Pedro Szasz, São Paulo needs to be more ambitious with its bus projects. He says that, contrary to what detractors may claim, there is more than enough road space to take lanes for buses. The problem, he adds, is that large projects require the right political and economic conditions, and these are not easy to come by.
Sustainable Transport, No. 23, Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (http://itdp.org/STe/ste23/johannesburg.html), March 2007
In November 2006, Johannesburg City Council approved a full BRT system, to be called Rea Vaya, which is scheduled to open by April 2009. With the impetus of the upcoming 2010 Soccer World Cup, Mayor Amos Masondo has articulated a new vision of effective and sustainable public transport. The project is being led by Mayoral Committee Member Rehana Moosajee and Director of Transportation Bob Stanway. With support from the Clinton Climate Initiative, operational planning for the system is beginning in March for the Phase I system. The 94-kilometer (54.4-mile) system will have a North – South corridor connecting Sunninghill to Soweto, with service to the central business district, and an East – West route connecting Sandton, Randburg, and Alexandra. The long-term vision is to develop a system that places over 85% of Johannesburg’s population within 500 meters (1/3 of a mile) of a Rea Vaya trunk or feeder corridor.
A key selling point for Mayor Masondo was the possibility of incorporating the existing minibus taxi industry into the new system as private operators. During apartheid the minibus taxi industry was one of the few places where black South Africans were able to invest. After the African National Congress took power, in order to prevent the creation of powerful mafias, no owner was allowed to own more than ten vehicles. Because of their quasi-legal status, these minibus fleets could never become formal sector businesses. Currently, Johannesburg has one public bus operator and one private bus operator, both of which are subsidized by the Municipality, and many small fleets of minibus taxis that are not subsidized. Rea Vaya will encourage the existing minibus operators to form themselves into legal companies, and bid on the operating contracts, putting them on a level playing field with the current bus operators.
Transantiago is the public transport system serving Santiago, Chile. It was introduced on February 2007, replacing the previous transit system that had thousands of independent bus operators with hundreds of new, large-capacity buses operating on bus-lanes with comfortable shelters at stops. The system includes local bus lines, main bus lines and a Metro (subway) network. It includes an integrated fare system, which allows passengers to make bus-to-bus or bus-to-metro transfers for the price of one ticket, using a contactless smartcards.
Transantiago’s implementation was very problematic, indicating the problems that can develop from poor planning, and the burden this places on users. During the first few months of operation, many of the bus companies had significantly less than their full planned fleet in operation, resulting in irregular headways, long queues outside Metro stations and bus stops, and extreme crowding during peak periods. The fleet management software (which includes the use of GPS to track bus locations) was not implemented. Some of the segregated bus corridors were not completed. There is also criticism of inadequate service to peripheral neighborhoods that previously had direct bus services.
Urban transportation experts identify the following reasons to implement surface BRT in modern large developing-country cities:
The iXpress bus network in Waterloo, Canada consists of 33 kilometres of high quality bus routes that connect four downtowns, major university facilities, office complexes, major hospitals and regional shopping centres. It operates every 15 minutes during rush hours and every 30 minutes at other times, and includes real-time customer information and other passenger amenities. It offers limited stop service and other design features that reduce transit travel times in the corridor about 25%. In response, ridership has increased 12% on the Northern Corridor and 62% on the Southern Corridor.
The study, Benefit/Cost Analysis Of Converting A Lane For Bus Rapid Transit describes various benefits and costs that should be considered when evaluating the economic value of “take-a-lane” BRT systems. These include:
Benefits
Direct Benefits
Indirect Benefits
Costs
Direct Costs
Social Costs
“Euclid Corridor [BRT] Project has Already Brought $4.3 Billion in new Investment to Cleveland,” by Steven Litt, Architecture Critic, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 12 February 2008 (www.masstransitmag.com/online/printer.jsp?id=5371).
Amid all the bad news about Cleveland’s economy, one big, positive number is sure to impress all but the most hardened cynics: $4.3 billion. That’s roughly how much fresh investment is being poured into the 4-1/2 -mile-long strip of land flanking Euclid Avenue, the city’s Main Street, between Public Square and University Circle.
The spending, which encompasses everything from museums and hospitals to housing and educational institutions, includes projects completed since 2000, those now under way and those scheduled to start within five or six years. The amounts they and nonprofit institutions are investing will easily dwarf the money spent by government and partners in the 1990s on sports stadiums and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
One big reason for the energy is the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s $200 million Euclid Corridor BRT project, which is reshaping Euclid Avenue around a bus rapid transit line. Pundits have long derided the project, funded primarily by federal money, as a boondoggle. Media coverage has focused primarily on businesses that failed during construction, along with the hassle of negotiating a sea of orange traffic cones.
The mortgage-foreclosure crisis, which has left as many as 12,000 homes vacant in Cleveland neighborhoods, has also obscured the impending rebirth of Euclid Avenue. But the developers say they see what’s coming. With the RTA project due for a ribbon-cutting in October, they’re rushing to renovate empty buildings and buy vacant lots.
“I’m a living example of it,” says developer Dick Pace, who has spent $7 million over the past two years to turn a 1910 auto showroom at East 71st Street and Euclid Avenue into labs and offices for pigment scientists, biomedical firms and startup entrepreneurs. “Before Euclid Corridor, I didn’t feel it was a good investment,” he said. Now his project is so successful, he said, he’s looking for other buildings along the street to buy and rehab.
Pace and others say that by connecting downtown and University Circle, the city’s two big employment hubs, Euclid Corridor is adding value and potential to everything that lies between. Indeed, the price of an acre in the long-blighted Midtown area has
doubled in the past five years from $200,000 to $400,000, said Jim Haviland, executive director of the nonprofit Midtown Inc., which has assembled 15 acres along Euclid Avenue for redevelopment.
Aside from the anticipated boon for riders, the RTA project is changing the mood on the avenue by freshening a major piece of public infrastructure with new utilities, sidewalks, traffic lanes and transit stops. “Developers gravitate toward places where they see investment happening,” said Lillian Kuri, director of special projects for the Cleveland Foundation. “There’s no question [about Euclid Corridor], it’s a catalyst.”
The robust growth of institutions on or near the avenue, such as the Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Museum of Art, while not caused by the Euclid Corridor project, is likely to expand bus ridership and encourage further investment.
“It’s huge,” said Edward Hill, interim dean of the College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. “I look at Euclid Corridor and, to me, it’s the single most exciting thing since the opening of Jacobs Field - and it has much more economic meaning.”
If the momentum continues, blighted sections of Euclid Avenue could fill up with renovated apartments, retail shops, research labs, and medical and cultural facilities. Many projects are to break ground later this year or in 2009, just after Euclid Corridor is finished. “It’s going to be a visual delight, and everybody’s going to be shocked,” said David Goldberg, co-chairman of Amtrust Bank and an investor along the avenue. “I won’t be shocked, because I know what’s happening now. The city is at a tipping point.”
This is still hard to imagine downtown, where many buildings along Euclid Avenue stand vacant. But East Fourth Street, where the Marons have invested $110 million, is humming with nightclubs, apartments and restaurants.
The new Euclid Avenue won’t resemble sepia-toned photographs of the 19th century, when the mansions of Millionaire’s Row lined the street. Instead, the avenue will be populated by students and medical workers, retirees and empty-nesters, who will be happy to ride the bus and save thousands of dollars a year by living without a second car.
Developers want to provide their buildings with cars for short-term rentals, and include RTA bus passes with leases. They say it will be far quicker to go from a downtown apartment to the Clinic on the bus than to drive and hunt for a parking space. Trends contributing to the rebirth on Euclid Avenue include the rising price of gas, which encourages transit use and redevelopment of the urban core. Federal and state tax credits for historic preservation have tipped the balance in favor of renovating older buildings downtown.
The impending revival has a certain déjà vu quality, said Christopher Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Every city has a “favored quarter” with a spine that connects the downtown to the wealthiest close-in suburbs, he said. In Cleveland, it’s Euclid Avenue, which is being reborn for the same reason it attracted wealth in the 19th century. He compared the avenue’s renewed potential to that of great streets such as Massachusetts and Wisconsin avenues between Dupont Circle and Bethesda, Md., in the Washington area or Peachtree Street in Atlanta from Midtown to the Buckhead neighborhood
Maurice Bridge, Vancouver Sun, Thursday, December 18, 2003
Main Street is about to become a $6.4-million showcase for improved urban transit.
The Greater Vancouver Transit Authority (GVTA), the Greater Vancouver Regional District and Transport Canada plan to spend the money over the next three years on improvements like “bus bulges” and “queue jumpers” to turn the No. 3 Main bus route into a model for other routes. It’s one of several innovative new programs by the transit authority and the district aimed at getting Lower Mainland commuters out of their cars and on to other modes of transportation.
The Main Street route, which is 8.2 kilometres long, is one of the most heavily used in the Lower Mainland. No. 3 buses carry an average of more than 23,000 people every day, and other buses on the same route at the downtown end add another 7,000. The No. 3 is standing-room-only from about 6:30 a.m. until nearly 10 a.m., and then again from mid-afternoon until about 7 p.m.
But the problem isn’t the number of riders -- it’s the frequency of the buses. Heavy commercial and private-vehicle traffic on Main, plus a lot of traffic and pedestrian stop-lights, means buses get jammed in the flow. Despite a bylaw requiring drivers to give right-of-way to a bus moving back into traffic from the curb, one driver laments that “even the cops don’t let us in.” In the mornings, 16 per cent of northbound buses run late, and 22 per cent of southbound buses. In the evenings, late southbounds drop to 22 per cent, but northbounds record a dismal 83-per-cent late-rate.
“This is the problem of the banana service,” says Stephen Rees, program manager for transportation policy at the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority (GVTA), whose job it is to make the Main Street showcase a reality. “You know, the buses only come in bunches.”
It’s a concept easily understood by anyone who has waited too long on a rainy day at a stop without a shelter, and Main Street has plenty of those. “In congested conditions, the front bus starts getting later and later as it’s delayed, and it picks up more and more people who were waiting for the bus behind. Eventually, what happens is the bus behind, because it’s not picking up so many people, catches up to the bus in front. So instead of one bus every five minutes, you’ve got three buses every 15. The idea of regularizing the system is to keep that spacing even, so that people see a five-minute frequency and not a 15-minute frequency.”
The showcase project plans to redesign the streetscape with ‘bus bulges’ – extensions of the curb at bus stops and intersections that allow buses to load and unload passengers without pulling out of traffic. These also make street crossings narrower, reducing the time needed for pedestrian-crossing signals and speeding up the flow of all traffic.
‘Queue jumpers’ – short , dedicated bus lanes at congestion points along the route -- will allow buses to move quickly past areas that currently slow them down.
A signal-priority system will allow buses to ‘hold’ green lights long enough to get them through intersections, reducing the number of stops for red lights. Better bus stops, with electronic displays similar to those used on the No. 98 B-Line are to be included to make using the bus more attractive to a wider range of riders.
The three-year project aims to improve efficiency by 10 to 15 per cent, and the GVTA suggests the freed-up resources could be used to increase bus service along Main by up to 20 per cent. Rees notes that the point is not simply to make the buses go faster. That could be achieved by turning the curb lane over exclusively to buses, he says, but it wouldn’t achieve the desired goals.
“What that does is, it antagonizes people, because it puts fast traffic next to people who are walking on the sidewalks, and when the sidewalks are crowded, that’s an uncomfortable feeling for everybody. It also gives people the wrong impression that what we’re trying to do is just speed up the buses and get you through your neighborhood, and that’s not the idea at all.”
He adds that the aim of the Main Street showcase is not simply to push the GVTA agenda, but to work with the city. “Yes, we’ll get better transit reliability,” he says, “but also there should be considerable improvements in the way the street works, commercially and socially.”
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Take the Metrobús in Mexico City By Cristine Russell, The Atlantic, November 2009. (http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/cristine_russell/2009/11/take_the_metrobus_in_mexico_city.php)
With hopes largely dashed
for completing a comprehensive global climate change treaty agreement in
Copenhagen next month, the spotlight will shift toward 2010 and upcoming
international gatherings such as the United Nations climate change summit
scheduled for next December in Mexico City. The greening of this
gridlocked, sprawling metropolis is underway, so delegates to the meeting--or
any visitors to the city--should consider doing their own small part to
combat global warming by taking the Metrobús when they get
there. |
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Guangzhou BRT (www.gzbrt.org/en/gz-brt.asp) is an example of a new BRT system in Guangzhou, China.
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Dario Hidalgo (2006), Comparing Transit Alternatives After Recent Developments in BRT in Latin America, Transportation Research Board 85th Annual Meeting (www.trb.org).
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Moazzem Hossain and Scott Kennedy (2008), ‘Estimating Energy Savings from Bus Improvement Options in Urban Corridors,’ Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 11, No. 3, (www.nctr.usf.edu), pp. 19-40.
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NextBus (www.nextbus.com) is a private company that uses Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to provide real-time transit vehicle arrival information to passengers and managers in various North American cities.
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William Vincent and Lisa Callaghan (2007), A Preliminary Evaluation of the Metro Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit Project, Bus Rapid Transit Policy Center (www.gobrt.org), for presentation at the TRB Annual Meeting; at www.gobrt.org/Orange_Line_Preliminary_Evaluation_by_BTI.pdf.
Lloyd Wright (2006), “Bus Rapid Transit,” module in the Sustainable Transport: A Sourcebook for Policy-makers in Developing Cities, published by the Sustainable Urban Transport Project – Asia (www.sutp-asia.org), Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (www.gtz.de), and the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (www.itdp.org).
Lloyd Wright (2007), Bus Rapid Transit Planning Guide, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (www.itdp.org); at www.itdp.org/index.php/microsite/brt_planning_guide.
Lloyd Wright and Lewis Fulton (2005), “Climate Change Mitigation and Transport in Developing Nations,” Transport Reviews, Vol. 25, No. 6, Nov. 2005, pp. 691–717; at http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/articles-70119_paper.pdf.
Samuel Zimmerman (2001), “Bus Rapid Transit Primer,” SMART Urban Transport, Vol. 1 No. 1 (www.smarturbantransport.com) September 2001, pp. 6-9.
This Encyclopedia is produced by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute to help improve understanding of Transportation Demand Management. It is an ongoing project. Please send us your comments and suggestions for improvement.
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