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

[Anjali Mahendra]

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

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

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
> >>
> >> 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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> >> countries (the 'Global South').
> >>
> >
> >
>
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> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
> equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries
> (the 'Global South').
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