[sustran] Re: Busway Operation

[Alan Howes]

Forwarding this post to transit-prof which amplifies re. Ottawa Transitway 


--
Alan Howes
Associate Transport Planner
Colin Buchanan 
4 St Colme Street
Edinburgh      EH3 6AA
Scotland
email:  alan.howes at cbuchanan.co.uk
tel:      (0)131 226 4693 (switchboard)
           (0)7952 464335  (mobile)
fax:     (0)131 220 0232
www: http:/www.cbuchanan.co.uk/


-----Original Message-----
From: Transit-Prof at yahoogroups.com [mailto:Transit-Prof at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Leech, Colin
Sent: 12 September 2006 05:52
To: Transit-Prof at yahoogroups.com
Cc: Peter Lutman; richmond at alum.mit.edu; whook at itdp.org
Subject: RE: [Transit-Prof] RE: [sustran] Re: Busway Operation

Hi everybody,

(Alan or Jonathan: Feel free to repost my replies to sustran-discuss, if you wish. I'm not a member of that list.)

And hello again, Jonathan. It's always interesting to see what part of the world you will pop up from. :-)

As always, I speak only for myself, not officially for my employer. That said, my employer has one of the best-developed busway networks in the world, so we have lots of experience with these types of operations.

Alan is correct that our critical capacity constraint is in the downtown core where buses operate in reserved lanes, but still have to content with traffic signals at cross streets and longer dwell times at stations due to high passenger volumes. We've still managed to pump through 180-200 buses/hour/direction with 9-10,000 passengers in the peak hour in the peak direction. Once on exclusive grade-separated r-o-w the capacity issues pretty much disappear unless station space is constrained at high volume locations. It has been postulated that grade-separating the downtown section could increase the capacity to 15-20,000 pphpd. If you need more capacity than that, perhaps you should be starting to look at heavy rail subway systems rather than busways or LRT.

While the bus volumes are exceedingly high for a bus lane with online stops*, it's actually not overly busy when compared to normal arterial streets which can easily carry 600-800 vph per lane depending on how much green time the lane receives at major intersections of cross streets. At places where busway traffic crosses itself (eg. entrance and exit ramps, and island-platform stations where opposing traffic streams cross over each other to circulate "wrong way" around the island), we only have stop signs not traffic signals. Signals are only used where the busway crosses other city streets at grade. The flow of through traffic is not disrupted by vehicles entering and exiting the system, nor are vehicles entering/existing unduly delayed waiting for gaps in the traffic. We have entrance/exit possibilities at numerous locations along each Transitway corridor.

* The bus lane in the Lincoln Tunnel leading from New Jersey into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City carries bus volumes many times higher than this. However, it is a dedicated freeway lane that does not have online passenger stops. The buses are distributed to over 200 individual gates inside PABT.

All of the buses we use are standard urban transit buses, both high floor (older buses) and low floor buses, with doors only on the right-hand side. There are also private companies which serve outlying towns and intercity buses (Greyhound) which use various sections of the busway using their standard intercity coaches. There are no specialty vehicles dedicated solely to service on the Transitway (busway).

Off-board ticketing would help reduce dwell times for passengers at the critical downtown stops, and we have looked at this (but not yet implemented it). As it is, about 70% of monthly passengers use monthly passes and we do allow boarding by all doors on articulated buses with a Proof of Payment system and roving fare inspectors. All passengers must board by the front door on standard 40 foot/12 m buses although the high pass usage rate does help speed up boarding on these buses. I haven't calculated recently what percentage of the buses travelling through downtown are artics but at a guess it's probably in the 25-35% range during peak periods.

One feature worth mentioning is that most stations have passing lanes so that express and deadheading (out of service) buses can pass vehicles that do pull in to stop at the station.  Lack of passing lanes would mean that the average speed of every vehicle becomes the same (lowest common denominator), whereas the average speed of our express buses is higher than the average speed of the mainline buses since the expresses typically don't stop at the smaller stations, and typically have shorter dwell times at outlying stations when they do stop for passengers. Another footnote is that the express routes do have a fare premium which discourages short-distance travel close to downtown, but even in corridors with regular fare routes the average speed does get raised by "leap frog" operation - i.e. the first bus of a platoon stops to pick up passengers, while subsequent buses in the platoon don't stop unless a passenger wishes to disembark.

Looking at Walter's middle paragraph and doing  a little "reading between the lines", I am reminded of horror stories from deregulated environments such as the U.K. of private bus drivers racing down city streets in order to arrive at the next stop ahead of their competitor's bus. Conceivably these sorts of things could also happen on a busway. However, that would really be a "political" problem of who is allowed to use the busway and enforcing normal driving etiquette, rather than a technical issue.  Sometimes engineers wind up having to implement technical solutions (eg. closing the system entirely, or requiring buses to use a specific guidance system to access the busway) in order solve problems that are really inherently non-technical. Coming back to the OC Transpo example, the Transitway is private property which is owned by the City of Ottawa and City-owned buses (a.k.a. OC Transpo) operate on it. Other companies are allowed to operate on it, although their drivers do have to undergo a bit of training. The training isn't a huge burden because standard traffic rules apply along the length of the Transitway. The only item that is out of the ordinary is the "wrong-way" circulation around island-platform stations, but even this can be pretty much explained through standard traffic signage, although it may catch a driver off-guard the first time he encounters it.

Quoting Walter:

> It is quite possible to design a busway with buses entering and 
> leaving the busway which has as high a capacity as a closed busway.

As discussed above, I do not foresee the entrances and exits being the limiting factor in terms of the capacity of the facility. 

> However, it requires a bus with doors on both sides of the bus,

I don't see why this would be a requirement, and I don't see any correlation between it and the issue of whether vehicles circulate both inside and outside the busway.

> it requires still having off board ticket collection along the 
> corridor, (which implies some duplication of ticketing systems) and platform level boarding.

Both of these items would certainly speed up service and increase the capacity of the system. They would be required only for systems with extremely high passenger volumes.

> It also requires that the streets where the normal buses operate can 
> handle larger buses (if they are required).

If you are using larger buses on the busway (eg. artics or double deckers), they may cause problems on small city streets in older cities. It hasn't been a major issue for us in the North American context.

> By the way, no system like this has yet been designed, to my 
> knowledge,

What you describe sounds suspiciously like Curitiba Brazil, unless I'm misreading something. 
See, among others: http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp90v1_cs/Curitiba.pdf

> but we are working on just such a system in Guangzhou. 

Given where you're working, I'm wondering if you have passenger volumes that should really be handled by high capacity heavy rail rather than busways or LRT?

Quoting Alan:

> one of the merits of BRT is that it is a flexible concept, not "one size fits all".

Absolutely correct. Ottawa is at one end of the North American extreme - with exclusive r-o-w and nearly 100% grade separation of the original system outside of the downtown core (with subsequent extensions that aren't quite so "gold plated"). Quebec City is perhaps the other extreme, where their "Metrobus" service has done wonders to revitalize their system using only a bit of paint and a few signs to create reserved lanes on city streets (I'm not even sure if they have any significant traffic signal priority measures yet). In Curitiba they have on-street reserved lanes and double-articulated buses but also with levels of traffic signal priority unheard of in North America, and the specialized stations that improve boarding efficiency beyond the levels that we achieve here. 

> If you want max capacity then you need mega-buses that will have 
> problems on ordinary roads - but if you are prepared to sacrifice some 
> capacity then a mix of bus sizes is fine.

One tradeoff being that you're probably running a feeder-linehaul service with the large vehicles dedicated to the busway, which then loses you one of the 'flexibility' advantages of being able to reduce transfers for passengers by using the same buses to circulate within neighbourhoods and then enter the busway. I would point out that in addition to this type of service, both Ottawa and Pittsburgh operate different types of mainline routes that operate along certain sections of the busway without necessarily travelling the full length of the busway (eg. in Ottawa routes 4, 118, and 101 (formerly 99), and the EBO line in Pittsburgh which operates along part of the East Busway but then exits to serve the Oakland area rather than continuing along the busway to downtown).

All opinions are my own, not my employer's.
--------------
Colin R. Leech - Transit Planner
Planificateur du transport en commun
OC Transpo - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
613-842-3636 ext./poste 2354
Colin.Leech at Ottawa.ca



-----Original Message-----
From: Transit-Prof at yahoogroups.com on behalf of Alan Howes
Sent: Mon 2006-09-11 10:58
To: Global 'South' Sustainable Transport
Cc: Transit-Prof at yahoogroups.com; Peter Lutman
Subject: [Transit-Prof] RE: [sustran] Re: Busway Operation
 
Must have a look at that website, Walter - 

But is your statement that "it requires a bus with doors on both sides of the bus" based on the premise that buses captive to the system will have high floors and platform-level loading on the off-side, while the "intruders" will have low-level boarding on the nearside?  This is one way of doing it, but not the only way.  All buses could have low floors and nearside boarding - the Ottawa Transitway is not closed, and AFAIK the buses have doors on one side only.  (Not sure it has any captive buses though, and you may not consider it BRT.)

In general, I see what you are driving at and agree - but one of the merits of BRT is that it is a flexible concept, not "one size fits all".
If you want max capacity then you need mega-buses that will have problems on ordinary roads - but if you are prepared to sacrifice some capacity then a mix of bus sizes is fine.

>From my [armchair] experience, I have concluded that the main constraint on capacity is actually the stations, particularly in a CBD or the like where large proportions of the pax on a bus are getting on or off.

Alan


--
Alan Howes
Associate Transport Planner
Colin Buchanan
4 St Colme Street
Edinburgh      EH3 6AA
Scotland
email:  alan.howes at cbuchanan.co.uk
tel:      (0)131 226 4693 (switchboard)
           (0)7952 464335  (mobile)
fax:     (0)131 220 0232
www: http:/www.cbuchanan.co.uk/


-----Original Message-----
From:
sustran-discuss-bounces+alan.howes=cbuchanan.co.uk at list.jca.apc.org
[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+alan.howes=cbuchanan.co.uk at list.jca.apc.
org] On Behalf Of Walter Hook
Sent: 11 September 2006 15:27
To: 'Global 'South' Sustainable Transport'
Subject: [sustran] Re: Busway Operation

Dear Jonathan,

It is quite possible to design a busway with buses entering and leaving
the busway which has as high a capacity as a closed busway.  However, it
requires a bus with doors on both sides of the bus, it requires still
having off board ticket collection along the corridor, (which implies
some duplication of ticketing systems) and platform level boarding.  It
also requires that the streets where the normal buses operate can handle
larger buses (if they are required).  The problem is that this requires
replacing a very large bus fleet, which is very expensive.  By the way,
no system like this has yet been designed, to my knowledge, but we are
working on just such
a system in Guangzhou.   

However, it is important that the system is 'closed' in the sense that
not any bus can use the system, only buses conforming to a required
technical specification and under a specific management authority.  By
this definition, this is still a 'closed' system, even if the routes
involve some that operate both on trunk lines and some in mixed traffic.


If you need to see the details for calculating capacity, you can for now
go to a non-linked part of the itdp web site, and check the to
operations chapters, at www.itdp.org/brt_guide.html.  I hope to have the
fully formatted new version up in a few weeks, but this will probably
have the information you need. 

Walter 

-----Original Message-----
From: sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org at list.jca.apc.org
[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+whook=itdp.org at list.jca.apc.org] On
Behalf Of Jonathan E. D. Richmond
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 3:32 AM
To: Sustran List
Subject: [sustran] Busway Operation


If anyone is an expert in busway implementation and operation and can
help with the following question, could they please be in touch with me.
The specific question I am trying to answer is "What is the difference
in capacity and operational viability and efficiency of an open as
against a closed busway." On an open busway, buses may enter and leave
at various points. With a closed busway, buses are isolated on the
busway itself, and do not enter or leave for distribution at teh
residential or city centre end. Thanks! --Jonathan!


-----
Jonathan Richmond
Transport Adviser to the Government of Mauritius Ministry of Public
Infrastructure, Land Transport and Shipping Level 4 New Government
Centre Port Louis Mauritius

1 (617) 395-4360 (for voicemail)

e-mail: richmond at alum.mit.edu
http://the-tech.mit.edu/~richmond/
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