An articulated 'Phileas' bus travelling along a busway in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Bus services are often seen by the travelling public, policy makers and planners alike as an inferior third rate public transport service which travellers fall back on when other services aren’t available. When planned and implemented effectively however, buses can provide a fast, frequent and efficient service which is attractive to commuters. The list of criticisms of buses is long, and there is no shortage of lobby groups and advocates who lobby for the laying of rails as the panacea to all their transport woes. While there are certainly cases where replacement of bus services with rail is warranted by passenger demand, this is not always the case. Somebody and MJJA have written recent posts about matching the appropriate modes to the required task. Rail solutions are often put up as solutions to problems where the answer in fact lies not in the vehicle used, but the manner in which the service is delivered. Given the right operating environment, buses can provide an alternative to trunk metro or light rail services with shorter implementation timeframes and lower implementation costs. 

Bus services as we know them

In many Australian cities, bus services involve poor frequencies (often half hour at best), old vehicles, contending with traffic congestion, poor signage and route information, poor passenger amenity (bus stops which consist of little more than a pole at the side of the road), poor interconnectivity and frequent stopping delaying journey times. Journeys are further delayed by the need for the driver to sell tickets to passengers. Buses are therefore said to be slow, irregular, uncomfortable and unpredictable. Furthermore, it is often claimed that passengers don’t catch buses because they “don’t know where bus stops are and they don’t know where the bus is going to go”. Conversely, it is said, trams and trains, give prospective travellers an idea of where the vehicle travels by virtue of the fact that the vehicles follow the rails.

Can buses play a mass transit role?

Let’s contrast this poor standard of services with the other extreme on the bus transport spectrum – the deluxe model in bus transport, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Based on the pioneering BRT model from Curitiba, Brazil, BRTs have been employed in other parts of Latin America and increasingly catching on in Europe and North America. Australasian bus systems which contain significant features of BRT include Brisbane’s South East busway, Adelaide’s O-Bahn, Sydney’s Liverpool – Paramatta transitway and Auckland’s Northern Busway. Queensland Transport is considering options for a Cairns Busway and a busway has been planned for Canberra.

How is BRT different?

The BRT model provides high frequency services, with high occupancy articulated buses carring up to 300 passengers. Vehicles can be gas powered, reducing emissions. Multiple doors allow for rapid boarding/alighting in the same manner that passengers enter and exit trams or metro carriages. The bus driver is relieved of the responsibility for selling or checking tickets as these are purchased at stations and various other outlets before boarding. Rather than stopping at frequent bus stops, BRT buses stop at bus stations which resemble light rail stops.

Busways can be created without the need for tracks or overhead cabling and can often be laid in less time than it takes to construct rail networks. Furthermore, because residents along major roads are already used to high volumes of traffic, new busways tend not to be subject to NIMBYism to the same extent that new rail or light rail lines are.

Ideally, BRT involves dedicated ‘bus roads’ or busways which separate buses from cars and regular traffic. Separating bus routes has the obvious advantage of removing buses from congestion – in the case of Brisbane’s South East Busway, buses zip along at 80km/h adjacent to the South Eastern Freeway, which in peak hour resembles a car park (a good depiction of this appears briefly in the video linked below). A journey from Eagle Plains to the city takes 18 minutes, compared to 45 – 60 minutes by car in peak hour. [1]. 

Achieving separation

Adeaide's O-Banh runs on a guided system designed to achieve a smoother ride. Running at top speeds of 100 km/h, it is among the fastest BRTs in the world.

Separation can be achieved by delineating existing lanes of traffic exclusively for bus use (in some cases by using physical barriers such as low curbs or in Chinese examples ‘fences’). More elaborate schemes involve the complete physical separation of busways from roads. This can be done by locating busways in the medians along arterial roads or freeways (eg. Curitiba, Brazil), in tunnels, elevated roads and overpasses (eg. Brisbane), or building new transport corridors (eg. Adelaide). Integrating busways with existing tram/light rail lines is also an option, however this option would be more prone to bunching.

Providing a dedicated, clearly legible bus route also removes the problem of “not knowing where the bus is going to go or where to catch it”. Moreover, it allows for trunk bus routes to be indicated schematically on metropolitan transit maps alongside trains, trams and light rail. This has been done effectively on Brisbane transit maps.

Bus stations

Bus stations are located at intervals similar to those of metro stations. Bus stations can provide ticket sale facilities, high levels of commuter information, real time departure info, and passenger amenities. When designed properly, bus stations enable buses to overtake those ahead of them and avoid the bunching phenomenon sometimes experienced by trams.

Significantly, bus stations can be staffed. Contributors at other forums have derided the suggestion that a ‘bus stop’ might be staffed at all, however staffing has significant potential benefits. Staff can sell tickets, undertake fare enforcement functions, provide customer assistance and information (particularly useful upon opening of new services), and ensure safety and amenity at bus stations. I understand that Brisbane bus stations and interchanges have begun employing staff at peak times to pre-sell tickets in order to expedite boardings and reduce dwell times.

Bus stations in Bogota have glass doors which open when the bus pulls up.

Off-road operations and network integration

Finally, busways enable integration between trunk services and local feeder bus services. This can be done by allowing feeder routes to enter the busway and travel along it to a final destination (CBD or a cross city destination), providing a single seat journey as is done in Brisbane and Adelaide (39% and 80% off system boardings respectively)[2]. Alternatively, feeder routes can be designed to connect with busway trunk services, allowing passengers to transfer to the busway. This is the case in Sydney’s Liverpool – Parramatta Transitway where no on-road bus routes directly access the busway. The latter option, with turn-up-and-go services can avoid the need for real time travel information, but may require high level of coordination with on-road feeder services if the trunk service is less frequent.

With these higher standards of service, one would expect sizable passenger volumes. In peak hour Brisbane’s South East Busway moves 15,000 people per hour. It has achieved a 56% increase in corridor ridership growth resulting carrying 26 million passengers a year. Adelaide’s O-Bahn carries 7 million pax/year, 4,500/hour in the peak, achieving a ridership growth of 25%, of whom 40% previously drove cars. [3].

A shopping list of options

BRT is the top of the range in bus services – the top shelf product. Like all transport modes, it isn’t without costs. An obvious one is higher staffing costs arising from higher numbers of vehicles involved. Another is the initial infrastructure cost compared with on-road buses. Installation costs vary depending on busway alignment, station intervals, and infrastructure such as tunnels and bridges. Brisbane’s South East Busway, which involved eight tunnels over 1.6km, a further 1.6km of bridges and viaducts, and 10 bus stations over a distance of 16 km (other sources report 20km) came in at a pricey >$24m/km [4]. There is no question that this was an expensive busway however much of this cost must be attributed to high quality station design, tunnelling and bridges. Adelaide’s O-Bahn cost only around $8m/km (in 1998 prices)[5]. Both of these were new busways built along entirely new alignments (although Brisbane’s follows an existing freeway). BRT costs would be reduced significantly when constructed on existing roadways, or within existing road reserves as has been done in South American and Asian examples. The quality of station design, amenities, and provision of real time travel information adds to the costs, as does the provision of elevators where bus stations are located above or below the ground.

Implementing low cost improvements utilising BRT principles

Even without full blown BRTs running inside the medians of major freeways and arterial roads, there are elements of BRT which can be incorporated into existing bus systems to provide better levels of service. Where opportunities exist, the busway separation concept can be partially applied at no cost, (eg. the use of freeway shoulders by buses in peak hour, as is done on Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway). Other initiatives may involve some cost. It is possible to cherry pick any one or more of these to provide improved services:

Buses share the tracks with trams in Mannheim, Germany.

- bus priority on the road network (eg. bus only lanes and priority signalling at intersections),
- improved traveller information,
- real time departure displays,
- improved cross modal integration,
- improved frequency,
- expedited boarding, and
- route legibility & identification.

In the interests of length I won’t describe each in great detail however I will briefly discuss the last two.

Expediting boarding and reducing dwell times is a no-brainer . This involves enabling passengers to enter/exit through all doors and relieving the driver of the ticket sale and enforcement function. Many European bus systems (particularly those in Eastern Europe) have significantly wider doors than Australian buses and operate much like Melbourne trams do – that is, passengers get on at any door and validate their ticket on board. Ticketing is not the driver’s concern. Some networks provide conductors, but most simply rely on random ticket checks by ticket inspectors.

Secondly – route identification. Without the need to construct busways, it should be possible to convey to (sub)urban dwellers the existence and connectedness of a bus network in the same way that tram tracks do through their presence.  What I have in mind is high visibility bus stops with matching on-road signage that indicates to potential travellers the presence and direction of a bus route. I’m not aware of any existing system, where cars and buses share lanes of traffic, which uses road markings indicate bus routes in a similar fashion to those used for dedicated bus lanes. I’m sure that some bright minds could come up with effective designs (like a continuous wavy line, or regular yellow polka dots) which could be used to indicate the presence of a bus route.

Another tool in the transport planner’s toolkit.

Buses are by no means a panacea. There will still remain a role for heavy and light rial. Buses need not however remain the poor cousins of trains, trams and metros with expectations of lower service standards. They can be an effective means of rapid mass transit and have proven to be effective in this role both in Australia and in other parts of the world. They should be considered as a viable option where the mode suits the purpose.

——-
References
[1] Currie, Graham. 2006. Journal of Public Transportation, 2006 BRT Special Edition. “Bus Rapid Transit in Australiasia: Performance, Lessons Learned and Futures”. p12. (references – Cr Quirk, and Currie, p12. ) .
Cr Quirk, quoted on “”Making Things Happen with Rapid Bus Transit Part II”. Accessed at http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEtf32Bu3Y&NR=1 on 21 Nov 2008.
[2] Currie, Graham. 2006. Journal of Public Transportation, 2006 BRT Special Edition. “Bus Rapid Transit in Australiasia: Performance, Lessons Learned and Futures”. p7.
[3] ibid.
[4] ibid. p5.
[5] ibid.

Useful Resources
1. “Go BRT” A ‘Fact Sheet’ with several good photos (PDF).
2. “Making Things Happen with Rapid Bus Transit“. YouTube video in two parts. (A look at BRT through rose coloured glasses, but several interesting images).
3. National Urban Transit institute “At-Grade Busway Planning Guide” – full of technical design info for all you technical folk.

Blacktown Railway Station - taken by SITWWW hosted wikipedia

Blacktown is another one of these ‘over the top’ palaces that has been built to serve passengers changing vehicles or modes. Despite its multi-tens-of-millions cost, its value to the passengers is zero, and would not have been needed to be so vast if other obvious changes had been made, for example, making Seven Hills the junction.

This morning’s Sydney Morning Herald refers to the decision of the Independent Pricing Tribunal (IPART) to set higher fares for Cityrail. While some efficiencies are expected from Cityrail, the fare increase was announced in dollar terms but also in terms of what the “flagfall” is and the per-km rate.

This is an important first step in getting a system that can be easily priced by an electronic swipe-on swipe-off system, and also redirecting resources away from encouraging outer-suburban and interurban long distance commutes.

But what is, or should be, in the ‘flagfall’ and how does the consumer value it?

When I looked at “Value Proposition and Value Adding” I put the view that for some customers the value proposition is very limited: to get from point A to point B. Trimming such as nice stations, comfortable vehicles and lavish customer service are excessive and not required by the customer, who will resent having to pay for these in their fare. Other artefacts of the service such as tickets, machines, storage and so on are more for the operators’ benefit than the customer’s.

However the value propostion of getting from point A to point B needs to be unpacked. Just how is the operator to deliver on the value proposition? It is fine to say that items such as tickets or stations add no value, but is that strictly correct?

A platform certainly adds value, if climbing up onto a train (with a floor height of 1.5 metres) from the ballasted track is the alternative. A sign on the platform adds value to the customer who has never been there before (but no value to the customer who knows the area).

The cost of these things is not variable; it is fixed. A customer travelling one kilometre or one hundred still needs a platform. And the only appropriate point to charge for the platform is from the customer when they pay for their ticket.

This is one component of flagfall.

Does the operator charge for the vehicle?

No vehicle means no value, so yes they need to charge for the vehicle. Is the vehicle a fixed cost? Yes again, it can do only one short journey a day or a full day of long journeys and still cost the same in opportunity cost of capital.

What about the staffing? This is trickier and depends on what value the customer assigns staffing. Much of railway staffing these days is not actually part of the value proposition and adds no value, however, in a society where anti-social behaviour and crime is widespread, providing a staff presence adds value through the value proposition of travelling from point A to point B safely.

We also need to unpack the value proposition “getting from point A to point B” in terms of the service standard. Does the customer want to go right now?

If I need to catch the tram at lunchtime, I want it now. But my flight to Vietnam later this month, I will travel on the scheduled service because I’m not so worried what time it goes; I do not value and am not prepared to pay for a turn-up-and-go services.

Others might: this is probably why Malaysian Airlines have five flights a day to KL, because some business people are fussier on their timings than I am. Their value proposition is not just to get from point A to point B, but to do it at unpredictable timings.

So some contribution to frequency, if the customers value it, needs to be priced into the flagfall rather than borne by the variable charge alone. And to off-peak services, if the piece of mind of knowing that the service is there, even if you are unlikely to use it, is valued by the peak time consumer.

There is an element of ‘divisibility’ which arises when we compare different service standards. The turn-up-and-go customer expects a whole package of services, several runs a day including the ones they actually use. So if I leave work around 6pm but can’t be sure which of the next 6 services I will actually catch, in effect I am valuing the presence of all of them, and should pay accordingly. If, on the other hand, I value a single train a day to Ararat, and will adjust my timing around that schedule, then I would not value any other trains they run besides the one I wish to catch.

What about mode-changing? As I mentioned in the earlier post, the simple value proposition for the train-bus customer, going from Point A to Point C via Point B, is that the customer walks off the train and onto the bus. Ideally the bus is already there, is metres from the train and is obvious where it is, where it is going, and the fare is already paid. You simply leave on vehicle and walk onto the other.

Anything above that is not valued by the customer and it doesn’t matter how colourful the LCD passenger information display is, or how grand the station concourse is, or even how comfortable the seats are while waiting for the next vehicle; none of these things were sought by the customer and are only artefacts of the operation. Operators, planners and politicians frequently lose sight of this, and are often overcome by the ‘ribbon-cutting effect’ or non-transport related motivation such as creating construction jobs, or making communities seem grander than they really are. They are certainly something the customer would resent paying for as part of their fare.

In fact many excuses are given, from town planning, to disabled access, to heritage, to the excessive cost, to avoid doing what the customers would actually like: to have the bus waiting right where the trains pull in, as I have seen done in so many country stations, but seems so difficult to achieve in urban areas.

When I went to Echuca the buses waited in the forecourt and the train was not 10 metres (through the side gate) from the bus. The passengers board through the door and the driver places the luggage underneath. A simple solution which addresses a simple value proposition. The customer, buying their ticket to Moama from Melbourne is expecting no more and does not need to pay for passenger information displays, fancy kerbing and bus layover areas, or excessive staff.

Maintenance is a semi-fixed, semi-variable component, with some of the wear and tear on the vehicle attributable to distance, and some simply to age and the need to stay ready for use. Flagfall needs to cover the age and ‘readiness’ element of maintenance.

I will look at per-km charging in a later post and its relationship to zonal fare structures, as well as a future post on cost-recovery levels.