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

[Visweswar]

Anjali,

I think you really made a valid statement " our methods of analysis need
serious revisiting " . It is extremely pitiful to see that discrimination
exists in every aspect of life, discriminating poor is not new in India. We
"rehabilitate" slums and build malls and develop IT parks, we are in the
process of renovating several airports in India and already have invested
hundreds of Crores of rupees building fancy airports in all Indian metro.
But do we ever care of providing cleaner toilets in our railway stations as
a minimum? Seriously we don't need experts nor their expertise to do
analysis and justify airports, we need good human beings and fellow
citizens who value and understand needs of everyone and not only the rich.
It is so stupid to see that we value the hunger of a rich car owner more
than the hunger of a poor bus commuter. VOT needs to be put in
trash.....1000 rupees of a rich person might buy him a days fuel for his
car but the same 1000 rupees of a poor bus commuter would meet months of
his commuting needs, so whose 1000 rupees is more valuable??

Visweswara Rao Gantasala.
Transportation Planner, IBI Group.

On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Anjali Mahendra
<anjali.mahendra at gmail.com>wrote:

> I agree, and your ideas are good.  The problem is pervasive in every area
> of transport policy.  Thinking about toll roads and congestion pricing, an
> area I work on quite a bit -- toll rates are set based on average incomes
> in a corridor and on average values of time, deepening the equity impact on
> poor drivers.  While strategies exist to mitigate this impact, I do think
> our methods of analysis need serious revisiting.  I'm glad you deal with
> this in your book.
>
> -Anjali
>
> On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 11:04 AM, <bruun at seas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> > Anjali
> >
> > Yes, what the US Dot suggests is certainly better than assigning each
> > individual commuter
> > their own value of time based on their income, as the theorists would
> like
> > to do.
> >
> > But there is still a large bias between corridors based on average
> income.
> > There is no escaping the fact that a corridor with a higher average
> income
> > along it will still have higher total monetized time savings  benefits
> than
> > a corridor with poorer people, given the same actual travel time
> reduction
> > on both corridors. Thus, it is still easier to justify building both
> > highways and transit for the wealthy than the poor.
> >
> > In my book I argued against monetizing the time savings and instead break
> > it down into actual time by demographic group to see what the
> distribution
> > of time savings is (and perhaps even increases in time for some people as
> > our professor from Mc Gill pointed out.)
> >
> > Eric Bruun
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting Anjali Mahendra <anjali.mahendra at gmail.com>:
> >
> >  I agree with Eric that it is standard practice, which is why
> neoclassical
> >> economics is never the right approach to analyze such transportation
> >> policy
> >> issues.  However, interestingly, here's a guidance document from the
> U.S.
> >> DOT that recommends using the same hourly values of time for auto/car
> >> drivers and transit passengers:
> >> http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/**policy/Data/VOTrevision1_2-11-**03.pdf<
> http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/policy/Data/VOTrevision1_2-11-03.pdf>
> >>
> >> Values of time also vary by trip purpose.  Values of time for a poor
> >> person
> >> commuting to work and a rich person going shopping may well be similar.
>  I
> >> wonder if CRRI accounts for that.
> >>
> >> Has there been any work/research on values of time in large cities of
> the
> >> developing world that anyone could direct me to?
> >> A couple of years ago, I prepared a guidance document on conducting
> >> exactly
> >> such an analysis in the U.S. context, of converting an existing lane on
> an
> >> arterial for BRT. I would appreciate any feedback:
> >> http://onlinepubs.trb.org/**onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rrd_**352.pdf<
> http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rrd_352.pdf>
> >>
> >> The Delhi BRT is what it is and has its issues: poor execution, it's
> not a
> >> BRT but simply dedicated bus lanes, poor selection of pilot corridor,
> and
> >> interesting issues Alok raised earlier like problems with driver
> training.
> >>  But, it certainly deserves a rigorous analysis to identify the issues
> >> that
> >> must be tackled as more corridors are considered.
> >>
> >> -Anjali
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 10:27 AM, <bruun at seas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>  Alok
> >>>
> >>> No, it isn't heresy. It is standard practice for neoclassical
> >>> cost-benefit analysis. We may
> >>> think it is a bad idea, but it is quite common.
> >>>
> >>> The way to criticize it so that the public understands what an outrage
> >>> it can be is to
> >>> compare saving 5 minutes for a wealthy business person's commute with
> >>> saving a full hour
> >>> for a poor person. If the rich person earns 12 times as much, then
> >>> according to this technique
> >>> saving the rich person 5 minutes is just as valuable as saving the
> >>> poor person a full hour.
> >>>
> >>> Even worse, using this kind of justification for time savings promotes
> >>> sprawl. All evidence shows
> >>> that eventually time saved turns into longer commuting distance
> instead.
> >>>
> >>> Eric Bruun
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Quoting Alok Jain <alok.priyanka at gmail.com>:
> >>>
> >>> > 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<
> 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
> >>> >>
> >>> >>
> >>> >>
> >>> >>
> >>> >>
> >>> >> 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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-- 
Vissu

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