Bus rapid transit systems: a comparative assessment

There is renewed interest in many developing and developed countries in finding ways of providing efficient and effective public transport that does not come with a high price tag. An increasing number of nations are asking the question—what type of public transport system can deliver value for money? Although light rail has often been promoted as a popular ‘solution’, there has been progressively emerging an attractive alternative in the form of bus rapid transit (BRT). BRT is a system operating on its own right-of-way either as a full BRT with high quality interchanges, integrated smart card fare payment and efficient throughput of passengers alighting and boarding at bus stations; or as a system with some amount of dedicated right-of-way (light BRT) and lesser integration of service and fares. The notion that buses essentially operate in a constrained service environment under a mixed traffic regime and that trains have privileged dedicated right-of-way, is no longer the only sustainable and valid proposition. This paper evaluates the status of 44 BRT systems in operation throughout the world as a way of identifying the capability of moving substantial numbers of passengers, using infrastructure whose costs overall and per kilometre are extremely attractive. When ongoing lifecycle costs (operations and maintenance) are taken into account, the costs of providing high capacity integrated BRT systems are an attractive option in many contexts.     

Spatial impacts of road pricing: Accessibility, regional spillovers and territorial cohesion

Road pricing policies are gaining prominence in EU countries. These policies have positive impacts leading to mobility patterns which are socially and environmentally more desirable, but they also have negative impacts. One negative impact is to be found in regional accessibility, due to the increase in generalized transport costs. This study presents a methodology based on accessibility indicators and GIS to assess the accessibility impacts of a road pricing policy. The methodology was tested for the Spain’s road network considering two road pricing scenarios. It enables not only the more penalized regions to be identified but also negative road pricing spillover effects between regions. These effects are measured in terms of accessibility changes occurring in one region produced by charges implemented in another region. Finally, the study of accessibility disparities (by calculating inequality indexes for each of the scenarios considered), provides policymakers with useful information regarding the impact of road pricing policies from the point of view of territorial cohesion.     

When are subsidies to trans-European network projects justified?

The trans-European transport network (TEN-T) encompasses the major planned transport infrastructure in Europe, ranging from high speed rail to port infrastructure. Projects in this category are considered priority projects and receive European subsidies; but these have been insufficient to get these projects off the ground. This paper addresses two research questions. First, it sketches the basic economics of cross-boundary infrastructure projects: what pricing and investment policies can we expect, what is the role of through traffic and high fixed costs of infrastructure? Second, it examines briefly what lessons the EU could draw from the experience of other existing federal funding institutions like the US and Germany. These ideas are used to propose a new subsidy scheme for the TEN-T projects.     

Transport policy prioritisation for Dublin

Internalisation of the external costs of transport is currently the subject of much debate. Estimation of costs such as those of pollution and congestion is a primary element in any strategy involving policies for use in the internalisation of these costs. The objective of the TRENEN II STRAN project, funded by the EU, was to develop a methodology for estimation of the marginal external costs of transport. The model developed during the project was used in a series of case studies. One of the case studies, that conducted for Dublin, is reported in this paper. A brief summary of the TRENEN approach is presented followed by the results for Dublin produced from policies such as Do Nothing, Uniform pricing (internalising external costs by means of fuel taxation), Congestion Pricing (cordon pricing) and a first-best policy, the Full Optimum where one assumes that the policy maker has perfect pricing instruments available. As one would expect, the model shows that the greatest reduction in traffic level and external costs would occur if it were possible to introduce a highly differentiated and sophisticated pricing system. Increased taxation on fuel is not an efficient policy as it does not address the marginal external costs of congestion in a way that time-differentiated road-use pricing would. The results from testing of the different measures are interesting particularly those relating to parking and the way in which residents within the CBD and commuters to the CBD are dealt with. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A meta-analysis of Western European external costs estimates

This paper analyses the external transport cost estimates that have been found in various European studies. These estimates seem at first glance to be highly dispersed, a fact which raises questions about their reliability. The article offers a list of the possible reasons for discrepancies between the various studies; differences in the specific situations studied, in the type of cost calculated, in the physical laws relating to emissions, in the measurement of values of external costs. It assesses the relative magnitude of each of these causes through a meta-analysis. It turns out that the main differences come from the specificity of the situation under review and the type of cost calculated. In comparison, differences in the laws and in the values methods have a lower importance. The conclusion is that the estimates of external costs are reliable for decision-making policies.     

Experiential Incrementalism: On the Theory and Technique to Implement Transport Plans and Policies

The paper describes an approach to the vexing problem of transport planning and policy. It deals jointly with three questions, which in today's practice are addressed separately: How are hypotheses about transport problems and alternatives to their solution developed? How can a good plan or policy be identified? What is the process of implementing a transport plan or policy? In doing this the paper has the ambitious objective of proposing a new model and process for transport planning and policy. It is applicable in developed and developing countries and is not restricted to the transport sector. The paper builds on, and is a reinterpretation of two cornerstone transport planning and decision-making models – the CATS (Chicago Area Transportation Study) Planning and Design Model and Braybrooke and Lindblom's Disjointed Incrementalism. It advances a technique of experiential incrementalism (termed polisanalysis) to develop and implement plans and policies. It proposes that problems should be diagnosed by observation and continuous data collection; that their continuous analysis, finding the “cure”, and implementation take place through the method of experiential incrementalism. In this method interventions are grounded on the theories of neoinstitutional economics and psychoanalysis and derived using contact function, explained in the paper, which renders the method scientific replicability. Experiential incrementalism can employ a wider array of options in planning and policy than is presently thought possible. Like other scientific methods, its application requires rigorous training.     

Longer and heavier vehicles in Belgium: A threat for the intermodal sector?

To achieve transport cost reductions and to reduce the environmental impact of road transport, different European countries are allowing or testing longer and heavier vehicles on their road network. In Belgium, the Flanders region started a trial in 2015 allowing a limited number of longer and heavier vehicles on a selection of approved routes. A concern among intermodal operators is however that an allowance of longer and heavier vehicles could trigger a reverse modal shift away from rail and inland waterways container transport. Starting from experiences in other European countries, this paper discusses the potential spatial impact of allowing longer and heavier vehicles on the market areas of intermodal transhipment terminals using a geographic information systems-based location analysis model. In a second step, external transport costs are incorporated in this model, to quantify the spatially diversified societal costs of a potential reverse modal shift.     

Characterizing the fragmentation level of Italian’s National Parks due to transportation infrastructures

In the last decades, due to the population increase and the relative need of new land to cultivate, expand urban centers and develop transportation networks, most of the Italian natural protected areas are subject to different typologies of human pressures that generally cause habitat fragmentation. This process represents a major concern for biodiversity conservation and a key driver of species loss.The main purpose of this paper was to investigate levels of natural habitat fragmentation due to roads and railways networks in the Italian National Parks (INP_S) through the use of an Infrastructural Fragmentation Index (IFI).All the operations (geospatial analysis, image classification, and fragmentation analysis) were performed using a Geographic Information System (GIS) software for elaborating a national database. The obtained results include an IFI value for each natural territorial unit inside any INP. Moreover, in order to highlight which are the INP_S characterized by higher infrastructural fragmentations, an IFI weighted mean was calculated for each INP. These results represent important indicators for the prioritization of biodiversity conservation interventions and the planning of a INP_S sustainable management.     

Policy analysis of third party electronic coupons for public transit fares

Mobile technologies are generating new business models for urban transport systems, as is evident from recent startups cropping up from the private sector. Public transport systems can make more use of mobile technologies than just for measuring system performance, improving boarding times, or for analyzing travel patterns. A new transaction model is proposed for public transport systems where travelers are allowed to pre-book their fares and trade that demand information to private firms. In this public-private partnership model, fare revenue management is outsourced to third party private firms such as big box retail or large planned events (such as sports stadiums and theme parks), who can issue electronic coupons to travelers to subsidize their fares. This e-coupon pricing model is analyzed using marginal cost theory for the transit service and shown to be quite effective for monopolistic coupon rights, particularly for demand responsive transit systems that feature high cost fares, non-commute travel purposes, and a closed access system with existing pre-booking requirements. However, oligopolistic scenarios analyzed using game theory and network economics suggest that public transport agencies need to take extreme care in planning and implementing such a policy. Otherwise, they risk pushing an equivalent tax on private firms or disrupting the urban economy and real estate values while increasing ridership.     

Assessing communicative rationality as a transportation planning paradigm

Communicative rationality offers a new paradigm for transportation planning. Drawing on the literature and lessons from transportation planning practice, this paper describes the characteristics of a “communicative” form of transportation planning and compares them with conventional practices. A communicative rationality paradigm would place language and discourse at the core of transportation planning. The paper argues that it would lead to greater attention to desired transportation ends (goals), better integration of means and ends, new forms of participation and learning, and enhanced deliberative capacity. The paper explains the implications of this paradigm for the role of the transportation planner, the purpose of planning, the planning process, communicative practices, problem framing, and the nature of planning analysis. The paper concludes with an assessment of communicative rationality's ability to promote more effective transportation planning. It seeks to create a dialogue that will support the investigation of new transportation planning processes. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Bicycle commuting in Melbourne during the 2000s energy crisis: A semiparametric analysis of intraday volumes

Cycling is attracting renewed attention as a mode of transport in western urban environments, yet the determinants of usage are poorly understood. In this paper we investigate some of these using intraday bicycle volumes collected via induction loops located at ten bike paths in the city of Melbourne, Australia, between December 2005 and June 2008. The data are hourly counts at each location, with temporal and spatial disaggregation allowing for the impact of meteorology to be measured accurately for the first time. Moreover, during this period petrol prices varied dramatically and the data also provide a unique opportunity to assess the cross-price elasticity of demand for cycling. Over-dispersed Poisson regression models are used to model volumes at each location and at each hour of the day. Seasonality and the impact of weather conditions are modelled as semiparametric and estimated using recently developed multivariate penalized spline methodology. Unlike previous studies that use aggregate data, the empirical results show a substantial meteorological and seasonal component to usage. They also suggest there was substitution into cycling as a mode of transport in response to increases in petrol prices, particularly during peak commuting periods and by commuters originating in wealthy and inner city neighbourhoods. Last, we extend the approach to a multivariate longitudinal count data model using a Gaussian copula estimated by Bayesian data augmentation. We find first order serial dependence in the hourly volumes and a ‘return trip’ effect in daily bicycle commutes.     

公路运输站场规划方案的综合评价方法

文章将层次分析法与模糊综合评价方法相结合,针对公路运输站场规划方案的综合评价,进行了多层次模糊综合评价方法的研究,阐述了该方法的原理及其在公路运输站场规划方案综合评价中的应用,证明了该方法应用的易操作性与可行性。