[sustran] Hub and Spoke model can make public transport system more efficient: IISc study

[Vinay Baindur]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/Hub-and-Spoke-model-can-make-public-transport-system-more-efficient-IISc-study/article17018422.ece



Hub and Spoke model can make public transport system more efficient: IISc
study
<http://www.thehindu.com/profile/author/K.C.-Deepika-278/>K.C. Deepika
<http://www.thehindu.com/profile/author/K.C.-Deepika-278/>
BENGALURU JANUARY 10, 2017 18:39 IST
UPDATED: JANUARY 12, 2017 14:22 IST



A view of the Kempegowda Bus Station.
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Could the airport-hub model be the answer to a more efficient public
transport system in Bengaluru? A study conducted by a team from the Indian
Institute of Science (IISc.), Bangalore, says a bus transit service based
on a destination-oriented or point-to-point approach in a large city is
“cumbersome” and “impractical.” Instead, it proposes a ‘Hub and Spoke
network,’ which is a combination of destination-oriented and
direction-oriented approaches, as the more efficient choice.

The recently published paper, ‘Development of hub and spoke model for
improving operational efficiency of bus transit network of Bangalore city,’
analysed the impact that creating multiple hubs - such as the Kempegowda
Bus Station - can have on the operating efficiency of the Bangalore
Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) as well as on the passengers.

What the study, conducted by the Department of Civil Engineering and Centre
for Infrastructure Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning (CiSTUP)
and Department of Civil Engineering revealed was that with 17 potential
hubs, three shortest paths for each route and a minimum of 10 minute feeder
routes, the total number of routes could reduce to 344 routes, requiring
4,436 buses. At present, the BMTC operates 908 routes with 6,056 buses, the
paper said.

Explaining how, Prof. Ashish Verma from CiSTUP said, “This model is
commonly used in the airline network. There are hub airports such as in
Dubai and Frankfurt. Instead of direct flights, they aggregate the demand,
bring it to hub airport, consolidate them and take them to different
destinations. In the Bengaluru context, the TTMCs are spread out quite well
and were supposed to act as hubs when they were conceived because they have
transfer service, parking facility and commercial spaces. The idea is not
to utilise them, but to use them to improve operational efficiency of the
network.”

What the study, which has been submitted to the BMTC, does is address
problems of the present system, wherein a “web of bus routes, many of them
long, ply through mixed traffic conditions resulting in poor reliability of
travel time. Capacity is also wasted, with some buses running full and some
others empty, while the frequency of the buses and the round trip time are
also affected.

Instead, the model seeks to “slice” longer routes into smaller ones,
aggregating demand at the hub locations, from where there will be high
frequency feeder buses between hubs as well as transfer services to
destinations.

Ekroop Caur, Managing Director, BMTC said the corporation had already
implemented the ‘hub and spoke’ model, reaping positive results. These were
from the Kempegowda Bus Station to Attibele and Hoskote, Kanakapura and the
ITPB. “We have seen an increase in ridership and frequency of buses and are
planning to implement the model in more sectors,” she added.

However, Prof. Verma said the model had to be applied to the entire network
to achieve full efficiency.