[sustran] Re: "So much for green transport."

[Madhav Badami, Prof.]

Sadly, assigning a high value even for small time savings for car users, and thereby swaying the results in their favour is sadly more the norm, than heresy. Even more sadly, what this approach leads to in the long run is misery for all, including car users.

Madhav

************************************************************************

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

Madhav G. Badami, PhD
School of Urban Planning and McGill School of Environment
McGill University

Macdonald-Harrington Building
815 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC, H3A 2K6, Canada

Phone: 514-398-3183 (Work)
Fax: 514-398-8376; 514-398-1643
URLs: www.mcgill.ca/urbanplanning
www.mcgill.ca/mse
e-mail: madhav.badami at mcgill.ca
________________________________________
From: sustran-discuss-bounces+madhav.g.badami=mcgill.ca at list.jca.apc.org [sustran-discuss-bounces+madhav.g.badami=mcgill.ca at list.jca.apc.org] on behalf of Anjali Mahendra [anjali.mahendra at gmail.com]
Sent: 26 July 2012 10:04
To: Alok Jain
Cc: worldtransport at yahoogroups.com; NewMobilityCafe at yahoogroups.com; Sustainable Transport in the south
Subject: [sustran] Re: "So much for green transport."

Alok and all,
Do we know if the CRRI report valued the reduction in accidents and
fatalities and greater reliability for bus users on the corridor as
benefits?  If CRRI only focused on the cost of delays to car users without
accounting for these benefits, it is a lopsided and incorrect analysis.

I would appreciate receiving the report too if you can manage to get it.

Thanks,
Anjali

On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Alok Jain <alok.priyanka at gmail.com> wrote:

> Initial feedback that I received was that this report was based on value
> of time judgements and assigns a much higher VOT for car users thereby
> swaying the results in their favour. This is obviously heresy. I will only
> know it once I have a sight of the full report.
>
>
> On 25-Jul-2012, at 8:24 AM, Karthik Rao-Cavale wrote:
>
> > So essentially the argument is that since Delhi has more car traffic,
> the city cannot have dedicated bus lanes (no point going into the argument
> of whether they constitutes  BRT or not. That debate is futile and
> meaningless.)
> >
> > But I would like to see the weighting of bus and car trips in CRRI's
> study. Their claims to expertise have no relevance to the value judgments
> they made regarding the assignment of these weights.
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 9:51 PM, Alok Jain <alok.priyanka at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The Delhi BRT Saga continues. Instead of fixing problems with BRT,
> everybody busy pointing fingers.
> >
> >
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/CRRI-explained-why-Ahmedabad-BRT-works/articleshow/15133172.cms?intenttarget=no
> >
> > CRRI explained why Ahmedabad BRT works
> > Rumu Banerjee, TNN | Jul 25, 2012, 03.46AM IST
> > Article
> > Comments
> >
> >
> > inShare
> >
> > Read More:CRRI|Central Road Research Institute|BRTS|Ahmedabad BRT
> Works|Ahmedabad BRT
> >
> > 0
> >
> >
> >
> > NEW DELHI: In its desperation to save its ill-conceived and poorly
> executed BRT project, Delhi government is now shooting the messenger. It
> has not only questioned the study conducted by the Central Road Research
> Institute (CRRI) but also launched a scathing attack on the institute
> itself.
> >
> > Falling back on its worn-out argument of a rich-poor divide, it called
> car owners "arrogant" and accused those who conducted the study of ignoring
> bus commuters.
> >
> > But berating car owners will in no way make the public transport system
> any better - for that governance has to improve — just as launching a
> tirade against CRRI will not make a dent in the organisation's reputation.
> CRRI director, Dr S Gangopadhyay, told TOI: "CRRI has been researching on
> road and transport solutions for decades. If anyone has questions about the
> methodology used for the study, we will be happy to answer. Our report has
> used international norms employed in such studies."
> >
> > Gangopadhyay's reaction comes in the wake of the government getting
> stung by CRRI's finding that "no BRT" was the best option. It has been
> promptly dubbed "anti-poor" by the government. It may help to recall that
> the agency had been hired by Delhi government on the suggestion of the
> court, which had rejected the transport department's plan to hire RITES for
> the study. Incidentally, RITES in a 2004 study of transport solutions for
> Delhi had recommended 34 BRT corridors. Preparation of the CRRI report,
> which is based not only on a week-long experimental trial run but also on a
> series of field surveys, culminated with a simulation exercise. The
> simulation was of the traffic scenario on the 5.8km stretch in 2015 with
> and without BRT, keeping the existing traffic volume as the base, factoring
> in an annual increase in traffic of 5-7%.
> >
> > The study found that doing away with BRT would result in a decrease of
> 48% in travel time, and a substantial 61% decrease in delay on the stretch.
> Compare this to the option of continuing with BRT, which would result in a
> further increase in travel time of 13% in 2015 as well as an increase of
> 15% in delays on the corridor.
> >
> > Sources said the surveys undertaken — including user perception,
> occupancy studies, pedestrian studies, passenger flows and saturation flow
> studies — show that BRT is not working at its optimum at present. Said a
> transport department official, "There is no denying that there are traffic
> issues on the stretch. Unlike the Ahmedabad BRT, the Delhi BRT is after all
> an open corridor."
> >
> > It's a point that the CRRI report has also underlined. It observes that
> the proportion of cars is almost 1.5 times that of Ahmedabad on the motor
> vehicle lane of Delhi BRT, which contributes to the lower journey speeds.
> This, says the report, is because the "width of the available MV lane is
> only 7-8m in either direction of travel". This width is less than the 10m
> width available for each direction of travel before BRT was conceived.
> >
> > The report adds: "Since the Ahmedabad BRTS is a closed system, the
> commercial travel speeds are much higher. The bus composition is about 3%
> of total traffic in both cases. The observed average speed of buses on
> Ahmedabad BRT section varies between 22-25kmph (CEPT Ahmedabad) which is
> much higher than that of Delhi BRTS - 13-15kmph)."
> >
> > The last fact seems to have been completely overlooked by Delhi
> government, which has been citing the success of the Ahmedabad BRT to
> continue with its floundering experiment.
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------
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> >
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