[sustran] Re: Thinking Outside the Bus

[Karl Fjellstrom]

Hi Paul,

To me there seems to be a contradiction between objectives of maximizing
transit ridership and saving passenger time, and many of the people writing
books and reports about transit, especially the ones who laud 'transfers'
as if they are something actually good. Some people making this argument
presumably come from a fixed-rail network background, and/or are promoting
fixed rail systems, which perhaps helps explain why they try to impose this
fixed rail network thinking on buses.

We saw this argument presented a lot in Guangzhou. People saying Guangzhou
doesn't have enough transfers, and has too many overlapping bus routes, so
we need to build transfer hubs and cut the bus routes so we can have more
transfers. To me it is a lot like arguing that Guangzhou's food is too
delicious, so we need to cut it back, make it less tasty so it's closer to
the average. Anyway, these consultant proposals, which culminated in a
transport master plan in 2006 funded by a World Bank loan recommending
dozens of transfer hubs and cutting the bus routes accordingly, are usually
thankfully and rightly dismissed by the city. And then the Guangzhou BRT
opened in early 2010. The Guangzhou BRT is based on an opposite premise.
It's a direct-service model, the idea being to minimize transfers and
maximize ridership and passenger time savings.

I took a quick look at the first link you provide below.
http://www.humantransit.org/2009/04/why-transferring-is-good-for-you-and-good-for-your-city.html.
The travel time argument is key, but the longer travel times are clearly
not the only disadvantage of transfers. The analysis is wrong, for several
reason, and I'm surprised that you are promoting this material. When
looking at frequencies and hence waiting times, it assumes no overlap
between the direct-service routes. The reality is with direct service
routes that you end up with a lot of route overlap at key, high demand
points. This provides many passengers - especially at the high demand areas
where they are most useful - with multiple route options, at high
frequencies. Secondly, the analysis assumes a 5 minute transfer cost, which
is far too low. Even in the best transfer situation you should probably
assume a 10 minute delay. And that is in the best situation, e.g. where you
just need to cross a platform. In other transfer situations you may e.g.
need to alight, cross a road, and walk to another bus stop or platform,
which could easily already exceed the 5 minutes transfer time that the
analysis lists. Plus you may need to pay again, and you are uncertain about
the waiting time. Plus perhaps the next bus is full, or there is no seat on
the next bus, etc. Plus, in order to access some transfer facility,
vehicles typically have to do some additional manoeuvring, which adds to
trip time and hence fleet requirements and system costs. Plus there's the
cost of building and operating the transfer facilities. It's why you almost
always see when looking at fare levels that what you misleadingly call
'connective' networks have higher fare levels than the 'direct-service'
networks.

It's typically disingenuous of people advocating transfers to gloss over
these issues of the actual physical transfer requirements and time and
other costs of transfers. And misusing the word 'integration' as a way of
describing proposals to cut bus routes and connect them with other routes
at hubs is one of the reasons the term 'integration' now has so little
actual meaning. Similarly, calling these cut-up bus networks imposing high
transfer costs 'connective' is just another piece of doublespeak.

Of course, these are just some very general, high level observations. The
situation is different in every city and corridor and in some situations
you may have to put up with more transfers than others. Some transfers of
course are unavoidable, but an important initial objective should always be
to minimize them.

best, Karl


On 2 June 2012 09:23, Paul Barter <paulbarter at reinventingtransport.org>wrote:

> Sorry for the delay in getting back to this discussion about
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/thinking-outside-the-bus/.
>
> I didn't intend to sound disparaging about initiatives like the Brunswick
> Explorer or the ITN rideshare exchange idea. [I don't want to talk about
> the jitney issue today].
>
> The Brunswick Explorer is a good approach in a situation that is extremely
> infertile ground for public transport.  The ITN likewise (in a very
> different way). The ITN barter system mentioned right at the end is indeed
> an interesting innovation too (as Brendan says). I have no problem with
> lauding these initiatives.
>
> But I still think the article is misleading because it implies that these
> two initiatives provide a damning criticism of mainstream public transport,
> even for bigger cities where many more people can and should be served.
>
> *Also, please don't dismiss "connective networks" so lightly. *
>
> In my view, a more positive embrace of connections (or 'transfers' or
> 'changes') in public transport can have major benefits. I know many people
> disagree with this but it is an important debate.
>
> Paul Mees (in his two books) and Jarrett Walker of Human Transit (
> http://www.humantransit.org/) and Vukan Vuchic in his various writings
> (and
> many others, especially in the German speaking world and Scandinavia) argue
> that better integration is a key to doing better with public transport in a
> wide range of contexts. This applies even to surprisingly low-density
> contexts (including North American and Australian metropolitan areas and
> rural and semi-rural places near European cities). Paul Mees even argues
> that it applies especially to low density places.
>
> Maybe Brunswick is indeed too small and too auto-oriented but above some
> threshold in city size and density, a simple time-pulse bus network could
> probably serve the community well. Those smallish North American cities
> that have halfway decent public transport all tend to have a timed-pulse
> network. Rural Switzerland achieves good public transport using the same
> trick. Unlike the Brunswick Explorer, such a connective network would have
> a hope of scaling up as the city grows and of aiming to serve a wider range
> of people.
>
> Jarrett Walker has a particular talent for explaining integrated transit
> network planning issues, so here are some links for those who want to learn
> more about 'connective networks' in public transport:
>
> http://www.humantransit.org/2009/04/why-transferring-is-good-for-you-and-good-for-your-city.html
> http://www.humantransit.org/2010/02/the-power-and-pleasure-of-grids.html
>
> http://www.humantransit.org/2011/07/los-angeles-deleting-some-lines-can-be-fair.html
> http://www.humantransit.org/2010/12/basics-finding-your-pulse.html
>
> But mistakes in network planning can indeed force too many transfers (as in
> the case of Delhi's Metro for example)
> http://www.humantransit.org/2011/02/basics-the-connection-count-test.html
>
> I would highly recommend Jarrett's book, also named Human Transit. It
> focuses on North America and Australia but the principles are universal and
> hence relevant to our focus at sustran-discuss.
>
> Paul
> --------------------------------------------------------
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