[sustran] Re: Article in Guardian Newspaper

[Jack Mallinckrodt]

At 05:47 AM 3/29/03, Debi Goenka wrote:

>
>We are trying to get some buslanes in Mumbai, and I would like to get some 
>answers. The standard response to bus lanes in Mumbai is that the existing 
>roads are not wide enough - my answer is that in such cases, perhaps such 
>roads should be reserved exclusively for buses!

JM: Well, maybe so, maybe not, but that should be based on comparison of 
how many persons per day the bus system would carry vs for the 
corresponding roadway. And that is exactly the same kind of calculation I 
was illustrating for light rail.

To compare bus vs automobile in the same way compute
PPHbus = BPD x BAVO
PPHauto = APD x AAVO
where BPH = buses per hour past an average point along the busway
       APH = Autos per hour past an average point along the road
       BAVO = Average Vehicle Occupancy of a bus, persons/bus
       AAVO = Average Vehicle Occupancy of an auto,persons/auto.
The mode providing the higher PPH count is more productive.

For example, using typical US numbers, if the roadway lane were to carry 
1700 vehicle/hour at an average vehicle occupancy of 1.5 persons/vehicle, 
the roadway would be carrying 2550 persons/hour. In the alternative, if the 
average bus occupancy were 11 persons/bus, you would have to run 231 buses 
per hour, or one every 15 seconds to provide equivalent transport volume, 
2550 persons/hour.

All the above numbers are typical for US, except for the 231 buses per hour 
which is very high. You should make this calculation for your own numbers 
for Mumbai. But for typical US numbers, it seems very unlikely that a lane 
could be more productively used as a busway than as a regular freeway or 
expressway lane.

Jack
<http://www.urbantransport.org/>www.urbantransport.org
   
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