Good Practices in Public Transport Planning: Competing Modal Choices and Enforced Transport Policies

GOOD PRACTICES IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT PLANNING: COMPETING MODAL CHOICES AND ENFORCED TRANSPORT POLICIES Francis Cirianni Dept. of Computer Science, Mathematics, Electronics and Transportation Faculty of Engineering - Mediterranea University, Reggio Calabria – Italy Domenico Ianno’ ATAM spa Public Transport Company, Reggio Calabria - Italy

1

INTRODUCTION

The best practices in public transport planning often show that competing modal choices are directly linked to the adoption and enforcement of specific transport policies. The paper presents the approach outlined in the strategy and lists the steps, which have been in part proposed and in part adopted by the Public Transport Company in Reggio Calabria, Italy. Passenger transport in its broadest sense involves many different means of transport, or modes. Promoting usage of public passenger transport starts with the integration of different modes of transport. The service and structure of the Local Public Transport (LPT) system has developed in an unorderly way in the years, adapting itself to an urban development which often lacks of planning, and in areas with poor access. The nature of the urban texture of the city of Reggio Calabria presents areas with a high population density and vast areas of urban sprawl, with a low number of road infrastructures adapt to public transit, with a consequence of low commercial speed and unreliability of the bus service. Reinforcing public transport services offers an alternative: congestion is usually based on traffic patterns that fit particularly well with the comparative advantages of collective transport since it is caused by collective demands in space and time. In such situations, public transport is particularly efficient in terms of resources required. Moreover, technological progress has made it possible to improve the performance of public transport in terms of reliability, accessibility, comfort, safety and flexibility. Public transport is also more sustainable in environmental terms. Data on air pollution show that emissions of the main urban air pollutants per passenger km are between four and eight times less for public transport and use five times less energy per passenger than cars as well as causing less noise and pollution. In the following paragraphs the aims and strategies which inspired the proposed plan are presented, describing the system before and after. Considerations on the adopted policies and actions for the best effectiveness of the system are proposed, including the construction of multi-modal terminals and park and ride facilities, the establishment of an information and traffic management system, incorporating the use of transport telematics, for the reassessment of travel choices before and throughout the journey, and a

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coordination of bus and rail operations applied to tariff-systems, combined ticketing and information systems. The simulation of the system adopting the proposed policies is based on quantitative models, simulating the supplied service, assessing demand, and evaluating the interaction between the systems of demand and offer. The indicators developed in the study and design phase are valued and verified in the application. 2

GENERAL STRATEGIES AND AIMS

The reform of Local Public Transport in Italy has introduced EEC regulations n. 1191/69 and n. 1893/91, with the Italian law D.Lgs 422/97, and at regional level with the adoption of regional laws. Among The general aims indicated in the laws is the promotion of the use of public transport in place of private transport, modal integration and fare integration, increase of accessibility and quality of the supplied services. In order to pursue such aims, the single actors involved in the process of reform of the LPT can adopt different strategies. The possible strategies are (De Luca, 2000): • institutional strategies, e.g., the writing of norms and regulations, the institution of Mobility Agencies; • organizational-managerial strategies, e.g., the rearrangement of the transport system using the available resources, pursuing aims of efficiency and effectiveness in economic and/or financial terms; • infrastructural strategies, e.g., the realization of new transport infrastructure. A transport company can adopt mainly organizational-managerial strategies using in the optimal way the infrastructures, the financial and human resources available. In this view the planning of public transit services regards three components: the service, the infrastructure and the institutional component (AA. VV., 2002). The planning of the integrated service regards the determination of the different elements of the network of the service (routes, frequency/timetable, vehicle scheduling, crew scheduling). The variables of service must be planned in a coordinate manner using a systemic approach. During the design of the service it is necessary to consider integration with the other modes of transport. The design of the infrastructures regards factors as the bus fleet, stops and interchanges. The design of the institutional component regards actions as the fare systems, and tariff integration. The tariff integration is set to fulfil the following goals: • a tariff structure which is simple and of easy comprehension for the customer; • define the participation mechanisms in the revenues between the different transport subjects. Therefore in the process it is necessary to monitor the evolution of the plan and the rate of fulfilment of the goals set.

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3

SPECIFIC STRATEGIES AND AIMS

In the following the strategies proposed, and in part adopted, from the Company of Local Public Transport of the city of Reggio Calabria and from the Mobility Authority of the city are described. The main purpose of the proposed actions is to improve the characteristics of mobility on public transport in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and quality of the offered service, and in terms of protection of the urban environment of Reggio Calabria; such purpose can be obtained aiming to the reorganization of the service, so as to: • improve the reliability by means of a regular service, simplifying the distances, the terminal stops and synchronizing the departure times; • increase the level of service by means of reduction of the waiting times and the transfer times; The proposed plan is based on the realization of a main network composed around the principal directories of traffic, and in a position to connect the main centres of attraction (railway stations, port, airport, central business and commercial district, town centre, institutional buildings, stadium and sport centres , university campus), with the aim to improve the connections between the suburbs and the city centre, and therefore to increase links with the creation of stable and reliable connections between the main nodes. The realization of the new system must absolutely be seen as an occasion to redesign in a unitary frame the mobility system. In fact, beyond the restructuring of the public transport, it is necessary to reorganize the private transport, realizing opportune exchange car-parks, and adopting politics for the dissuasion from the use of the individual vehicle transport mode. 4

THE PLANNING OF THE SYSTEM 4.1

The methodological approach used

The approach used for the assessment of the proposed aims is of the “what if” type, based on solutions proposed from the planner, in function of the experience and the knowledge of the particular reality. Such solutions are, then, estimated and confronted between each other simulating the operation (Figure 1). Once known the matrix origin-destination of the public transport and the running times of the links of the network, the adopted methodology for the simulation of the operation of the network has been articulated, for every single plan hypothesis, in the following phases: • outlining of the network with the representation of the supply by lines; • choice of the route and assignment by simulation of the choice behaviour of the customers by means of strategy optimal (strategy of the hyperlink); • calculation of frequencies; • calculation of indicators.

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Definition of an initial configuration of the transport network

Planner

Simulation of the initial configuration

Examination of the results of the simulation

Proposal of one or more alternative networks to the previous one (or) STOP

Simulation of the proposed alternatives

Figure 1 – general scheme of the simulation model The verification of the performances offered from the planned network has been carried out therefore on the base of the following performance indicators: • indicators of system • average travel time; • average access time; • average waiting time; • average transfer time; • average on board time; • average exit time; • indicators of line • seats x Km; • Passengers x Km; • average rate of crowding. 4.2

Analysis and simulation of the current system

The city of Reggio occupies a surface of 275 kmq that places it by extension at the first places among the Italian cities. It extends in a long and narrow manner, stretched along the ionic shoreline for approximately 30 km between Bocale to the South and Catona to North. Therefore it does not have a central radial development characteristic of many cities, but a longitudinal development with the road network with a comb structure, with a number of incoming lines connecting the suburban areas and the villages on the mountain side to the main costal area. The main rail and road axis run along the coastline, and local and regional roads run from the mountain and connect on the costal motorway. The railway line extends along the coast and altogether at the station of Reggio Calabria arrive around 150 trains/day (local and long distance). The lines of extra-urban coaches offer transport services between Reggio Calabria and the cities and towns of the province and region with distances

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that are developed mostly along the SS 18 national road, the A3 Motorway and SS 106 national road and often offering a service in parallel with the railway track and service. The public transit of the city of Reggio Calabria is managed from ATAM, the public bus company, with an actual daily offer of approximately 11.000 buses x km and 850,000 seats x km. The supplied service, with the exception of some connections, is a not very frequent one, due to the territorial extension of the city that prevents a capillary service to the numerous fractions and quarters, and due to the under sizing of the fleet, currently limited to 88 buses. Moreover the action of optimisation and improvement of the service is bound to the conditions generated from the circulation and the traffic that can be improved only with the application, on behalf of the competent council authorities, of the traffic regulation instruments as the Local Transport Plan. The current bus lines have developed in a generalized manner in the years, often adding extensions with the development of the city and the sprawl of the urban settlements, reaching rather long extensions ( some lines beyond 15 km one way), crossing the entire city sometimes, with travelling times that exceed 90 minutes. Similar lines are subject to many disadvantages; among the others the fluctuation of traffic loads on the various sections part of the route, the reduced probability of guaranteeing the respect of the timetables, the chain repercussion of eventual delays or anomalies in the service, the difficulty to adopt alternative, substitutive or integrated services when required. In terms of frequency the service is not uniform; as most of the lines are programmed for 8 to 12 runs every day, that means less than one run per hour in average; and considering the concentration of runs during peak hours the consequent total absence of supply of transport for wide time slots. A further handicap to the service is the under sizing of the bus fleet, which in a city of 185.000 residents and a total fleet of 88 vehicles, corresponds to a rate residents/bus of 2102 (the average Italian rate is 1000 residents/bus), which translates in a further dent in the programmed frequencies. Criteria of design based on policies that assigned to the public transit an almost exclusively social role, have determined a network with abundance of lines scattered on the territory and characterized from low service frequencies. Table 1 – system indicators for the current situation O/D pairs with no transfer (%) O/D pairs with 1 transfer (%) average travel time (min) average access time (min) average waiting time (min) average transfer time (min) average on board time (min) average exit time (min) Number of necessary Buses

v.a. 31.2 64.6 85.7 5.0 35.9 14.0 24.3 6.9 69

The simulation of the current configuration has allowed, assigning the demand matrix to the network to tune the proposed model, confronting for every line the on board flows estimated from model with those measured on the main

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links of the net; furthermore the performance indicators were calculated with the aim to confront them subsequently with those deriving from the application of the planned network. For the current situation the system indicators are shown in Table 1. 4.3

Reorganization of the Urban public transport

4.3.1 Reorganization of the bus service The reorganization of the bus service has been carried out through the methodology of network design, based on the "what If" approach, described previously, and has been put into effect in the following phases: 1) definition of the service network (bus routes and lines) and hierarchy of the components, with the localization of the main network, the secondary network, and the interchange nodes; 2) quantification of the frequencies of the services; 3) verification of the level of service offered and eventual modification of the network. 1) the plan proposed is based on the realization of a leading system of transport (main network) along the principal directories of traffic, in a position to connect the main centres of attraction (railway stations, port, airport, central business and commercial district, town centre, institutional buildings, stadium and sport centres, university campus). It is constituted from a high capacity line with high commercial speeds, defined from the analysis of the current mobility demand. The secondary network is constituted from lines that allow the most direct connection between the fractions and/or the suburban areas and the main interchange nodes, located on the edges of the central city area served from the main network, and the lines in the central area that serve as adduction shuttle to the main network. the proposed service plan would furthermore, with the terminus of the lines of the secondary network in the nodes of interchange, limit the number of urban lines that cross the central area; and the number of buses per day that cross the centre would pass from 412 to 272 units. It has to be said that to this reduction corresponds a greater coordination of the service, because with the adoption of the main network lines a number of overlapping services are eliminated, increasing the efficiency on the entire system. In the design of the lines rules of good practice were followed (Ceder and Wilson 1986), in particular avoiding and discharging cases as the following: • lines too short, which serve directly only a modest travel demand; • lines too long , which easily run into delay and irregular services; • lines with complex circuits that involve extended average times on board. The interchange nodes were located and designed to allow the following intermodal exchanges, local-local, local–extraurban, and private-public, therefore the areas are equipped with services (bus station) and parking areas for bus and cars (park & ride). 2) Regarding the current system, with uncoordinated services for different lines and timetables not calibrated in function of travel demand, the proposed system adopts high frequency on the main lines, and medium / low frequency on the secondary lines, designed on the estimated demand. The plan includes © Association for European Transport 2004

some unregular services for specific required demand, limited in time or space dimensions, as commuter runs (work and school) on the routes already served by the regular service, and on request runs (dial a ride) for some zones with weak demand and not served from the planned routes. 3) the verification of the supplied performance of the planned network has been carried out on the base of the indicators of performance described previously, in the process to bring to the planned network to satisfy the aims given. In the design it has been held account of the available resources in the current scenario and in the forecasted short term period. In detail this translates that for the calculation of the indicator “number of necessary buses” the management of the vehicles, developing therefore the scheduling of the collective transport, has been implemented with the aim to quantify the profile of the meaningful fall back on the efficiency and on the effectiveness of the service; and of the optimisation that follows on the better service to the passenger, and also for the better cost management supported from the company that runs the service. 4.3.2 The policies collateral to the plan The success in the reorganization of the service depends from the adoption of some measures that in this paragraph we define collateral. Indeed, one of the conditions of efficiency for a transport system that runs on a road network shared with private traffic is the reduction of the congestion on the links, and the reduction of the congestion is directly dependent from the reduction of transport demand on private vehicles, mobility demand that must be satisfied from the public transport. From the simulations carried out, and the observation of the experiences made in other realities, it appears obvious that the supply of public service assumed unilaterally from the Public Transport Company, not supported from actions promoting Public Transport, e.g. discouraging private car trips to the areas of greater attraction, will not meet the required goals. Therefore, if the objectives of an improved Mobility and Transport System are the reduced car use, therefore a modal shift, and a reduction of accidents and pollution, the actions proposed are the improvement of bus facilities, traffic calming and a car parking strategy. The intermediate steps are the increase of short term parking, reduction of car trips, reduction of traffic speeds and increase of bus trips. In order to make the most of improvements in each individual transport mode, transport planning should be integrated between all the modes, so that for example, a passenger can buy a ticket covering the whole of the journey, even if that includes a change from, for example, train to bus. The planning of the Transport System includes a mix of measures designed to encourage people to use public transport ("pull" measures) and, where appropriate, measures to reduce the use of private cars ("push" measures). Push measures can be divided into financial instruments, and technical and regulatory constraints.

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On their own, pull measures are not always sufficient to effect a change in transport patterns. A mix of pull and push measures should aim at widening effective choice and improving access to mobility. Also the effective integration of individual modes and public transport operations is essential, in particular the construction of interconnecting transport infrastructure, multi-modal terminals, park and ride facilities, and the establishment of an information and traffic management system, incorporating the use of transport telematics, which allows for the reassessment of travel choices before and throughout the journey. Among the possible actions that the authority for mobility control can assume, the following actions have been chosen: 1) Multimodal integration with other companies of public transit (bus and rail) 2) Pay and Display Parking and Park and Ride facilities 3) Information System to the passenger. 1) Multimodal integration. At the current state, the city centre is connected to the fractions and near towns, by railway and by coach services, run by different companies. These companies run a service also within the urban area, which involves two important issues. The first one is that the presence of further buses on the city network increases levels, and the causes, of congestion, with the known consequences, among which pollution and delay. The second is that there is a doubling of services, that creates a kind of unregolamentated competition, which on the long run damages the service. The Designed Plan sets the terminus of coaches at two interchange nodes, localised at the margins of the central area and the Controlled Traffic Zone, and also at the two main railway stations of the city. In order to offer a continuity of the service the emission of integrated tickets is introduced. At the moment the integration is at an advanced stage, having been adopted for regional rail transport and urban public transport, and the current plans foresee the extension to the provincial coach services in the short period. Better coordination of sub-systems such as bus and rail operations is essential for fulfilling the potential offered by public transport. This applies to both infrastructure (terminals) and policies (combined ticketing, information systems, tariff-systems) improvements. Fare systems are often complex and the method of payment too restrictive, for example, allowing only prepaid tickets, not available on the vehicle, or requiring exact fares. An integrated and harmonised ticketing system makes travelling easier for passengers as they are able to purchase a ticket at the start of their journey which is valid throughout. Where such systems have been introduced, this has also been accompanied by increases in use of public transport. The adopted fare system in the urban area of Reggio Calabria is described in table 2. Table 2 - fare system Integrated

Ticket cost

Previous

No

€0,52

Adopted

Yes

€0,80

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Time of validity Single journey 90 min

Modes

Transfer (n)

Urban Bus

0

Urban Bus Suburban Bus Train

Unlimited in time of validity

2) Pay and Display Parking and Park and Ride facilities. It is consolidated practice that for the user of the transport system the comparison between the costs of private vehicle and public transport, is made without considering the indirect costs, or the costs falling back on the community. Actions like policies of pricing road use, e.g. road pricing or “pay and display” parking, tend to transfer directly the cost of the use to the user, with a different assessment in the utility function of car versus bus use. The effect of pricing public spaces occupied for parking disincentives the use of private vehicles, and at the same time it supplies economic resources that can be re-invested in infrastructures and services of collective transport, so the combined effect results in a higher demand which has to be met by an adequate supply of public transport. The parking scheme is run from 7,30 a.m. to 7,30 p.m. of working days, and the current tariff is of 0,50 €/h; the location of the parking spaces hasn’t followed a designed scheme, presenting a leopard spot distribution. The plan proposes the extension to all the Controlled Traffic Zone, which includes a vast part of the central area, with concessions limited to the residents and vehicles of public utility, and the adoption of a different rates for some area with greater parking demand (1,00 €/h). So the parking places, which are distributed on an area of less than a square kilometre, will pass from the current 1200 units to 2600 units. A correct parking policy aims to redistribute on and off road parking, discouraging parking in what is the central area by the means of charging policies and the institution of a Controlled Traffic Zone, and doing so shifting long term parking to fringe areas, with the adoption of Park and Ride facilities. A key factor of the success of the proposed public transport service is the adoption of the parking policy. To support the inter-modal movements private - public, on those links that do not find however valid alternative by the means of entirely public transport, in alternative to the direct access in the central precinct with the private car it is proposed the interchange at Park and Ride facilities, already realized in proximity of the interchange nodes. For the customers who buy the bus ticket, or a period pass, the car park is free. Table 3 - interchange facilities interchange bus - bus Bus - Coach

Bus - Train

P&R

Pentimele Libertà Garibaldi Botteghelle

Yes No Yes No

Yes Yes No Yes

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes No Yes

Parking places 150 300 -------500

3) Information System to the passenger Co-ordinating the timetable is vitally important. The need to change mode should be reduced as much as possible, but where it is unavoidable the time spent waiting for the next vehicle should be kept to a minimum. In order to increase the efficiency and the quality of the service offered to passengers, it is necessary to recur to technology and hardware to monitor the system and inform passengers, before and during the trip. Currently the service is run without the aid of such instruments, and the information at bus

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stops is limited to scheduled timetables and information on the routes past the stop. Therefore if passengers were able to know the effective time of arrival of the bus, especially in a system where delays due to interference from congestion on lanes shared with the private traffic are frequent and where the service has a low or medium frequency, they would appreciate the reliability of the system, increasing the utility of the bus alternative in the modal choice. If transport systems and services are to be used effectively, it is essential that people who need to travel are kept informed about what is available in terms of transport choices and, when they are using the system, kept up to date on the progress of their journey and of the choices and changes they may need to make. The system, by the adoption of a Fleet Control system, will be able to provide time information on arrivals and departures, to allow the time of arrival of buses to be predicted and displayed at stops, and also advise car drivers of available parking spaces at transport interchanges. 5

ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSED SCENARIO

The performances of the scenario of the proposed plan have been verified on the base of the indicators of performance described in the paragraph 4.1. From the comparison of the indicators (table 4) and from the analysis obtained from the simulations on the scenario of the proposed system, it is observed that the reorganization and the rationalization of the routes operated in the planning phase involved an improvement of the performances of the system. Table 4 – Comparison of system indicators Actual Scenario v.a. O/D pairs with no transfer (%) 31.2 O/D pairs with 1 transfer (%) 64.6 average travel time (min) 85.7 average access time (min) 5.0 average waiting time (min) 35.9 average transfer time (min) 14.0 average on board time (min) 24.3 average exit time (min) 6.9 Number of necessary Buses 69

Proposed Scenario v.a. 16.1 58.0 62.1 4.0 22.1 9.9 21.8 4.5 72

Var%

-27.5 -20.0 -38.4 -29.3 -10.3 -34.8 4.3

The benefits induced from the planned scenario are seen in the sensitive improvements on all the network, also in relation to the indicators of level of service. In particular, the variation in the main indicators, as the average travel time (-27,5%), average waiting time (-38,4%), average transfer time (29,3%). As already said in paragraph 4.3.2, an improved supply of public transit, not supported from policies of discouragement of private transport, could not be sufficient to increase demand quotas to the public transport mode; in fact, as shown in table 4, with the proposed reorganization of services, we would have an increase of the number of transfers on the system of public transport: the

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percentage of O/D pairs that are connected directly from a bus and therefore do not require transfers decreases from 31,2% to 16.1%. On the other hand, in the choice of the transport mode the number of transfers is one of the attributes of level of service that mainly conditions the customer, with the frequency of the connections. It is clear therefore that the successful application of the new system is bound to the application of the main collateral policies proposed. 6

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper the approach to the restructuring of the Public Transport service in Reggio Calabria has been presented. The proposed plan, presented in its aims and strategies, in the analysis of the system before and after shows that competing modal choices are directly linked to the adoption and enforcement of specific transport policies. The policies and actions for the best effectiveness of the system are proposed, including the construction of multi-modal terminals and park and ride facilities, the establishment of an information and traffic management system, incorporating the use of transport telematics, for the reassessment of travel choices before and throughout the journey, and a coordination of bus and rail operations applied to tariff-systems, combined ticketing and information systems. The simulation of the Public transport system has shown an increase of the performance indicators of the service, therefore an improved supply of public transit, but it has also shown that the razionalization of the service not supported by policies of discouragement of private transport would not be sufficient to gain demand quotas to the public transport mode.

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