Transport in large cities: a Brazilian point of view

Abstract

Following the historical evolution of urban transport in South America, the authors show the economic, technological and cultural facts that have governed its development until today.

The paper, mainly based on experience in large Brazilian cities, gives facts and figures about some of the most important towns where different approaches to urban transport were tried. Information about other South American countries is also given and discussed.

The article details the evolution, current situation and new plans in Sao Paulo city, describing concession criteria, modal split and the economics of the different modes in operation today and planned for future use, ending with the general influence of Sao Paulo experience of urban transport systems in many other Brazilian cities.     

Shared taxis: modelling the choice of a paratransit mode in Santiago de Chile

The shared taxi is a special public transport mode, typical of Chilean cities. It operates with cars offering a maximum capacity of four seats, a predefined coverage area and a route that is fixed in principle, but can be adapted to meet passengers’ needs. During a normal day in Santiago, almost 700,000 trips use shared taxis during one of their stages. This represents about 4% of the total trips made in the city, and this modal share increases in zones and periods with low Metro and bus coverage. This study is a first attempt at studying shared taxis as a relevant transport alternative, analysing its main attributes and modelling its demand. With this purpose, after an analysis of the network and its operation, a revealed preference survey (including perceptual indicators) was applied to public transport users in Santiago who had shared taxi as a feasible alternative. Results show a positive evaluation of the mode’s unique attributes, such as the possibility of travelling seated, reducing transfers and alighting at a convenient destination. The subjective valuation of the attributes derived from the models confirm the strong penalty assigned by Chilean users to alternatives implying transfers or increased walking times. The analysis also shows that studying the characteristics of shared taxi users is relevant in a discussion about its regulation and modernization, considering that, while it is desirable to preserve its positive attributes, this should be done in a context of efficient integration with the rest of the transport system.

     

The influence of individuals’ environmental attitudes and urban design features on their travel patterns in sustainable neighborhoods in the UK

This paper explores the influence of individuals’ environmental attitudes and urban design features on travel behavior, including mode choice. It uses data from residents of 13 new neighborhood UK developments designed to support sustainable travel. It is found that almost all respondents were concerned about environmental issues, but their views did not necessarily ‘match’ their travel behavior. Individuals’ environmental concerns only had a strong relationship with walking within and near their neighborhood, but not with cycling or public transport use. Residents’ car availability reduced public transport trips, walking and cycling. The influence of urban design features on travel behaviors was mixed, higher incidences of walking in denser, mixed and more permeable developments were not found and nor did residents own fewer cars than the population as a whole. Residents did, however, make more sustainable commuting trips than the population in general. Sustainable modes of travel were related to urban design features including secured bike storage, high connectivity of the neighborhoods to the nearby area, natural surveillance, high quality public realm and traffic calming. Likewise the provision of facilities within and nearby the development encouraged high levels of walking.     

Carbon emission from urban passenger transportation in Beijing

Urban passenger transport significantly contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions, especially in developing countries owing to the rapid motorization, thus making it an important target for carbon reduction. This article established a method to estimate and analyze carbon emission from urban passenger transport including cars, rail transit, taxis and buses. The scope of research was defined based on car registration area, transport types and modes, the stages of rail transit energy consumption. The data availability and gathering were fully illustrated. A city level emission model for the aforementioned four modes of passenger transport was formulated, and parameters including emission factor of electricity and fuel efficiency were tailored according to local situations such as energy structure and field survey. The results reveal that the emission from Beijing’s urban passenger transport in 2012 stood at 15 million tonnes of CO₂, of which 75.5% was from cars, whereas car trip sharing constitutes only 42.5% of the total residential trips. Bus travel, yielding 28.6 g CO₂, is the most efficient mode of transport under the current situations in terms of per passenger kilometer (PKM) emission, whereas car or taxi trips emit more than 5 times that of bus trips. Although a decrease trend appears, Beijing still has potential for further carbon reduction in passenger transport field in contrast to other cities in developed countries. Development of rail transit and further limitation on cars could assist in reducing 4.39 million tonnes CO₂ emission.     

Transport reviews prize

This paper reviews the provision of public transport in the Cape Town Metropolitan Area and the proposals for its future development. A vitally distinguishing characteristic of public transport in Cape Town and other South African cities is the fractured market with great discrepancies between different segments. These range from those with high incomes and preferences similar to those found in typically First World countries to a great majority living at or below minimum poverty levels with virtually no choices and a very different set of needs and preferences. Although scope for improving service levels and satisfying user needs is unlimited, in South Africa resources for transport are facing severe competition from other macrolevel social and economic imperatives, such as combating crime and addressing discrepancies in health and education needs. This situation represents a huge challenge to those responsible for planning and developing public transport strategies. Evidence is presented that current public transport services are unsustainable in terms of increasing subsidy requirements while also not effectively meeting user needs. Proposals to restructure the public transport system and to use Stated Preference techniques to identify user needs are put forward. Given the fractured market for public transport in metropolitan Cape Town, Stated Preference techniques will require innovative adaptations and different approaches to those most commonly applied elsewhere in the world and this paper provides some broad guidelines.     

Preference heterogeneity in mode choice based on a nationwide survey with a focus on urban rail

The provision of efficient and effective urban public transport and transport policy requires a deep understanding of the factors influencing urban travellers’ choice of travel mode. The majority of existing literature reports on the results from single cities. This study presents the results of a nationwide travel survey implemented to examine multiple modes of urban passenger transport across five mainland state capitals in Australia, with a focus of urban rail. The study aims to explore differences in mode choices among surveyed travellers sampled from the five cities by accounting for two types of factors: service quality and features of public transport, and socio demographic characteristics. A stated preference approach is adopted to elicit people’s valuation of specified mode-choice related factors and their willingness to pay. In particular, the availabilities of wireless and laptop stations – two factors rarely examined in the literature, were also considered in the SP survey. The survey data were analysed using mixed logit models. To test for preference heterogeneity, socio-demographic factors were interacted with random parameters, and their influences on marginal utilities simulated. The analysis reveals that intercity differences, user group status, gender, income, and trip purposes partially explain observed preference heterogeneity.     

Physical characteristics of paratransit in developing countries of Asia

Paratransit modes play a significant role in the urban transport sectors of developing countries since in many cities more than half of the total public transport demand are carried by them. Rapid increase in urban population, per capita income, along with inadequate existing transport infrastructures have stimulated their usage as cheap and convenient public transport modes. This paper examines their present role and physical characteristics in a comparative form to provide a basic data for discussion of urban transport issues in developing cities.     

Measuring the satisfaction of multimodal travelers for local transit services in different urban contexts

The importance of measuring customer satisfaction for a public transport service is apparent, even beyond more immediate marketing purposes. The present paper shows how satisfaction measures can be exploited to gain insights on the relationship between personal attitudes, transit use and urban context. We consider nine satisfaction measures of urban transit services, as expressed by a representative sample of Italian multimodal travelers (i.e. users of both private cars and public transport). We use correlations and correspondence analyses to show if and how each attribute is related to the levels of use of public transport, and how the relationship is affected by the urban context. Then we apply a recently developed method to combine ordinal variables into one score, by adapting it to work with large samples and with satisfaction measures which have a neutral point in the scale (i.e. “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied”). The resulting overall satisfaction levels and frequency of use were not correlated in our sample. We also found the highest satisfaction levels in smaller towns and the lowest ones in metropolitan cities. Since we focus on multimodal travelers, an interpretation paradigm is proposed according to which transit services must be well evaluated by car drivers in smaller towns in order to be considered a real alternative to cars. On the other hand, transit is more competitive on factual elements in larger cities, so that it can still be used by drivers, even if it is not very well evaluated.     

Empirics of multi-modal traffic networks – Using the 3D macroscopic fundamental diagram

Traffic is multi-modal in most cities. However, the impacts of different transport modes on traffic performance and on each other are unclear – especially at the network level. The recent extension of the macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD) into the 3D-MFD offers a novel framework to address this gap at the urban scale. The 3D-MFD relates the network accumulation of cars and public transport vehicles to the network travel production, for either vehicles or passengers. No empirical 3D-MFD has been reported so far.In this paper, we present the first empirical estimate of a 3D-MFD at the urban scale. To this end, we use data from loop detectors and automatic vehicle location devices (AVL) of the public transport vehicles in the city of Zurich, Switzerland. We compare two different areas within the city, that differ in their topology and share of dedicated lanes for public transport. We propose a statistical model of the 3D-MFD, which estimates the effects of the vehicle accumulation on car and public transport speeds under multi-modal traffic conditions. The results quantify the effects of both, vehicles and passengers, and confirm that a greater share of dedicated lanes reduces the marginal effects of public transport vehicles on car speeds. Lastly, we derive a new application of the 3D-MFD by identifying the share of public transport users that maximizes the journey speeds in an urban network accounting for all motorized transport modes.     

Urban form correlates of pedestrian travel in youth: Differences by gender,race-ethnicity and household attributes

This paper looks at pedestrian travel in Atlanta by US youths aged 5–18 years. Relationships between five urban form variables and walking in specific demographic subgroups are assessed using stratified logistic models and controlling for participant demographics. All five urban form and recreation measures were related to walking among whites, but only land use mix and access to recreation spaces were significantly related to walking in non-whites. There were more significant urban form physical activity associations in high-income than in low-income households. More urban form variables were related to walking in households with 3 or more cars than in households with no cars. Living in mixed use-areas and having access to recreational space were related to youth walking for transport in 11 of 13 population subgroups studied.     

Livelihoods,daily mobility and poverty in sub-saharan Africa

Based on research funded by the UK Department for International Development, this paper investigates the utility of a livelihoods approach in identifying the mobility and accessibility needs of the poor. Mobility patterns and livelihoods of stratified samples of households in urban-to-rural corridors originating in the national capital cities of Zimbabwe and Uganda are compared, with emphasis on the poor's position relative to higher income groups. It is found that livelihood work was the most frequent purpose of short-distance travel for all income groups and localities, amounting to 38% of trip purposes in Uganda and 46% in Zimbabwe. On average, Zimbabweans were more mobile making more daily trips over longer distances reflective of greater reliance on motorized transport in the country. Nonetheless, walking dominates modal journeys in both countries. Ugandans display heavier dependence on bicycle and motorcycle transport primarily through taxi hire compared with Zimbabweans' private care and public kombi bus transport. Survey evidence suggests that Uganda's poor and middle-incomed urban and rural residents benefit from more widely available multimodal public transport.     

Organization of urban mass transport in developing countries

The supply of mass transport has not kept pace with the demand in cities in developing countries due to rapid urbanization and severe resource constraints. Developing countries would benefit from a study of the experience in developed countries regarding organization of mass transport and may adopt a few of the successful techniques. Examples include: unified transport authority; intermodal transfer facilities; subsidy to public transport; light rail transit; and redevelopment of the area around main rail terminals. Developing countries would be able to implement most of these techniques. The possible contribution of developed countries to developing countries lies mainly in the area of rolling stock and advanced signalling for rail based urban transport and in training highly skilled manpower for operation and management.     

Urban walkability considering pedestrians’ perceptions of the built environment: a 10-year review and a case study in a medium-sized city in Latin America

ABSTRACT

Numerous methodologies measuring walkability have been developed over the last years. This paper reviews the Walkability Index (WI) literature of the last decade (2009–2018) and highlights some limitations in the current approaches. Only a few studies have evaluated walkability in Latin America, mainly in big cities but not in medium and small-sized cities in the region, which present their own urbanisation dynamics, security issues, sidewalk invasion problems, and poor planning. Furthermore, most WIs in the literature use objective mesoscale variables to assess walkability in a given area. This paper contributes to filling these gaps by generating new evidence from a medium-sized city in Latin America to question if characteristics of the built environment encourage walking trips, as found in the literature, are transferable among regions. The study also proposes a novel index comprised of microscale and mesoscale built environment variables to assess walkability using virtual tools and considering users’ perceptions. The WI estimation relies on ranking probability models. The results of the case study suggest that subjective Security and Traffic Safety are the most crucial factors influencing walkability in these kind of cities, which is different from what is found in the literature from cities in developed countries where Sidewalk Condition and Attractiveness are the most important factors. Security appeared to be strongly associated with a subjective dimension, represented by the fear of crime or perceived risk for crime, instead of the actual occurrence of crimes. This result evidences the importance of the physical attributes of the real world and how they are captured, judged, and processed by pedestrians. Then, regional transferability of WIs needs to be done carefully. Finally, results in this paper highlight the importance of microscale built environment characteristics in the WI formulation in these cities. Results are in line with other research in some cities of the region, which found that microscale variables such as pavement quality and presence of obstacles on the sidewalks are relevant components to promote walkability.     

Urban Space Distribution and Sustainable Transport

In many cities of the world, road space is increasingly contested. Growing vehicle numbers, traffic calming and the development of new infrastructure for more sustainable transport modes such as bicycles have all contributed to pressure on available space and conflicts over the allocation of space. This paper provides the first assessment of urban transport infrastructure space distribution, distinguishing motorized individual transport, public transport, cycling and walking. To calculate area allocation, an assessment methodology was developed using high-resolution digital satellite images in combination with a geographical information system to derive area measurements. This methodology was applied to four distinctly different city quarters in Freiburg, Germany. Results indicate that space is unevenly distributed, with motorized individual transport being the favoured transport mode. Findings also show that if trip number to space allocation ratios are calculated, one of the most sustainable transport modes, the bicycle, is the most disadvantaged. This suggests that area allocation deserves greater attention in the planning and implementation of more sustainable urban transport designs.     

Urban public transport in Europe: Technology diffusion and market organisation

Technological change and incremental technology, at various levels, are believed to have played an important role in the success of urban public transport in Europe. In this paper, a historical overview of the evolution of different transport modes across different European cities is presented. Our major concern is with the processes of diffusion of urban transport modes in European cities and, in particular, with the factors, mainly of an economic nature, that may explain their rates of adoption across Europe. Among these factors, special attention is given to the role played by the dimension and organisation of public transport markets in the rates of adoption of different public transport modes. The main conclusion of the paper is that the success of the introduction of a new transport mode appeared to be mainly related to its ability to provide cheaper and more reliable transport services compared with previous transport modes, and that, in the case of the electric tram, this was achieved by transforming of the structure of the market relating to this urban transport mode into monopolies.     

Problems of the carless in the United Kingdom and the United States

An examination of current population statistics shows that in the U.S. more than half of the population is without immediate access to a car, and in the U.K. more than three-fifths of the population is without access to a car. This phenomenon has been accentuated by national investment in both countries in major highway programs. The term carless refers to more than just households that own no cars. It extends, in households with cars to those without licenses (old and young), the handicapped, and even the licensed drivers who have no access to the family car when it is in use elsewhere (e.g. at work). The most severely effected are those in urban areas and especially the urban poor. Transportation expenses are limited for the poor when other family expenditures (food, shelter) take a high priority. Once the work trip has been satisfied, money for other trips, for the poor, is not always available. One solution to cost-free travel is pedestrianism (walking), but this too is difficult in urban areas where the pedestrian has been overlooked in favor of the car. Solutions to problems of the carless include dial-a-ride, better public transit, and better design of urban form.     

Does transport help people to gain employment? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the empirical evidence

ABSTRACT

The role of transport in providing access to employment has received considerable attention. Since transport policies may be motivated by assumed effects on employment probability outcomes, it is important to establish the nature of the relationship between transport and employment outcomes. While the majority of the empirical evidence suggests a positive association, it is not conclusive or consistent and often shows mixed results. To address this confusion, our study has systematically reviewed this evidence base and synthesised it through meta-analysis. We first identified 93 studies that quantitatively assessed the impact of transport on employment outcomes. By systematically merging the empirical evidence, this study establishes a positive association between transport and employment outcomes, with varying effects for four identified categories of transport measures (or combinations thereof): car ownership, public transport access, commute times, and job accessibility levels. This positive association persists in studies that control for endogeneity between transport and employment, but a larger evidence base is needed to establish a more robust relationship, in particular for cities and smaller (rural) areas outside the US-context and with regard to public transport. We then selected 20 methodologically comparable studies for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Our meta-regression models clearly demonstrate that car ownership significantly increases individual employment probabilities, in particular among welfare recipients. Young drivers benefit from access to household cars when these are not in use by their parents, and they are more sensitive to the time and cost implications of longer commutes. While our systematic review suggests that better access to public transport and higher levels of job accessibility increases employment probabilities, meta-regression analysis requires more consistent transport measures. The findings in this study are important for policymakers in that they imply that job seekers may benefit from public policies targeted at improving their access to public transport, in particular for people without access to cars and in areas with fewer job opportunities.     

Transport reviews prize

The transport problems that urban centres now face (as regard congestion, the environment and public deficits) have led to an examination of competition in the sector. Some countries have moved towards the deregulation or privatization of urban public transport, influenced by developments in the theory of contestable markets. These analyses could potentially provide a means of increasing the efficiency of public services and, hence, public transport. However, the authors do not feel that they can deal with the full extent of the problem. Particularly in urban areas, there is a need nowadays to examine the issue of competition between the passenger car and public transport, especially from the pricing angle. In France, decades of policy strongly influenced by a preference for the car have prevented this problem from being a central concern for researchers and decision-makers. The approach to the problem has mainly been centred on increasing urban supply to meet demand better. However, a failure to consider pricing, and the subsidization phenomena that can occur as a result, affects the shape of supply systems. Pricing, through its action on demand, acts on supply by increasing or reducing its potential profitability. 'Snowball' effects can, therefore, mean that slight underpricing results in the domination of one transport mode. These effects have been revealed in particular by work in the new field of network economics. The example of the Lyon conurbation shall be used to illustrate the case, which is that car travel is underpriced. The basis of the exposé will be a detailed analysis of the externalities associated with the car, i.e. the costs of car use and the revenue it raises for the community. The second part of the paper is a study of several urban travel policies in Europe (France, UK, Switzerland, Italy) to show the 'effects' of this underpricing. Where supply has followed the pressure of demand, the dominance of the car has been reinforced. However, in cities, particularly in Switzerland, where supply has been restricted, this dominance has been considerably moderated. On the other hand, it can be seen from the French example that taking strong action to improve public transport is not in itself sufficient to increase usage. Several lessons can be learnt from this work. First, it is shown, if it was still necessary to do so, that the problems of urban travel require a comprehensive and coherent approach. Modal policy must, therefore, be assessed with reference to the entire transport system. Next, in connection with the issue of regulation, it is important to consider the issue of competition in urban areas, and not only competition between public transport operators, but also (and even above all) competition within the entire system of personal and public transport. Finally, with regard to pricing, the ratchet effects that benefit the car as a result of its underpricing in urban areas need to be studied.     

Exploring transport carbon futures using population microsimulation and travel diaries: Beijing to 2030

Evaluating transport policy for cities in developing countries is often constrained by data availability that limits the use of conventional appraisal models. Here, we present a new ‘bottom-up’ methodology to estimate transport CO₂ emission from daily urban passenger travel for Beijing, a megacity with relatively sparse data on travel behaviour. A spatial microsimulation, based on an activity diary survey and two sample population censuses, is used to simulate, for Beijing’s urban districts, a realistic synthetic population, and their daily travel and CO₂ emission over 2000–2010. This approach provides greater insight into the spatial variability of transport CO₂ emission than has previously been possible for Beijing, and further, enables an examination of the role of socio-demographics, urban form and transport developments in contributing to emissions over the modelled period.Using the 2000–2010 CO₂ emission estimates as a baseline, CO₂ emissions from passenger travel are then modelled to 2030 under scenarios exploring politically plausible strategies on transport (public transport infrastructure investment, and vehicle constraint), urban development (compaction) and vehicle technology (faster adoption of clean vehicle technology). The results showed that, compared to the trend scenario, employing both transport and urban development policies could reduce total passenger CO₂ emission to 2030 by 24%, and by 43% if all strategies were applied together. The study reveals the potential of microsimulation in emission estimation for large cities in developing countries where data availability may constrain more traditional approaches.