Introductions

Bus rapid transit (BRT) is a broad term given to a variety of different transportation systems involving buses and ranges from:

● Dedicated exclusive busways such Curitiba (Brazil)

● Buses operating in high occupancy vehicle lanes or in mixed traffic, such as in Houston, LA, Ottawa.

● Dedicated busways with some form of guidance such as in Essen or Adelaide’s O-Bahn.

● A mix of initiatives such as signal prioritisation, off-bus fare collection, level boarding upgraded and or well spaced bus stops and real time information services, such as LA’s MetroRapid.

BRT is a fuzzy concept that could broadly be argued is any bus measure above basic normal on-street operation.

This study will be investigating bus measures internationally with a focus on exclusive busways as is proposed for Wellingtons Northern Corridor.

BRT is an old concept and was apparently first proposed in Chicago in 1937, however the first exclusive busway was the El Monte Busway in LA; opened in 1972, then opened to cars containing 3 then 2 or more passengers in 1974 which caused severe congestion.

BRT is often portrayed as “like rail;” or “rubber rail;” however without the cost. Which asks the obvious question – if it’s so much like rail – why not just build rail to start with?

Advantages of BRT

Busways and BRT are perceived to have positive effects on road congestion and are seen to improve this, cheaper than light or heavy rail can. Busways are often cheaper in the short term because of lower vehicle capital costs; they utilise existing streets and road maintenance costs are usually externalised.

Busways are seen as being more flexible and responsive to population changes. They can provide seamless travel, reducing the numbers of transfers, from a distant suburb to the city; with roving buses driving through normal streets picking up passengers until they join the express busway to central destination.

Busways can be built incrementally and extended as desired.

The International situation

Just this week two large bus BRT projects internationally have been turned down in favour of light rail alternatives – In Minneapolis and Seattle.

To start with it is best to look at the home of BRT Los Angeles.

Los Angeles.

LA’s El Monte busway opened in 1973 and was moderately successful peaking with ridership at 30 000 per day, however opening the busway to high occupancy vehicles (HOV) and resulting congestion resulted in a 33% reduction in passenger

-ship.

1997-2000 LA opened the Harbour Transitway, an 11km stretch of mixed bus and HOV for approximately $500 million, and whilst there is debate on the passenger figures there is consensus that it is low; below predictions, and substantially less than the near-by LRT.

LA’s Metro Orange Line is a dedicated busway that curiously is classified as a rail network and is given a colour coding. This busway was opened recently and is still under construction. The project has been plagued by work disruptions and the busway has seen numerous crashes both as a result of bus driver error and vehicles ent
ering the busway.

LA’s silver line – a ‘train-like-bus,’ where buses are painted the same colour as the train and are officially part

of the train network.

Ottawa.

Ottawa’s Transitway is the largest project in the City’s transportation history and has been honoured with a Canadian Public Works Project of the Century Award. A dedicated system of bus-only roadways, the Transitway provides an exclusive rapid transit link across much of the City’s urban area, with service operating 22 hours a day. Ottawa’s busway is often cited as the best example internationally; however it is troubled by congestion at city entrances; fares had to be reduced to encourage usage and passenger trips per year has dropped by 1 million since completion.

Ottawa in 2001 built an experimental light rail network, the O-train. One criticism is that the trains receive very low ridership compared to some very crowded bus lines. It should be noted, however, than one fully loaded O-Train carr

ies 285 passengers compared to 131 passengers for buses

Adelaide

Adelaide’s O-Bahn busway opened in 1986 and is a guided busway that runs for 12 km. Built rather than the originally conceived light rail system, the busway has been moderately successful and has not seen the 25% reduction in passenger numbers since transport deregulation that other networks have. This has been ascribed to the fact that the busway caters to the growing northern suburbs. The O-Bahn encounters problems at the end of the busway when the buses join congested city streets.

Curitiba

Curitiba has, indeed, accomplished a lot on a limited budget and is often cited as the developing country, ‘city that could.’ Using novel approaches to transport planning Curitiba was able to drastically improve the efficiency of its bus fleet.

Prepayment of fares and level boarding, systems typically found in rail systems, create a very efficient boarding and deboarding process. A bi-articulated bus (a 5-door, 82-foot bus built by Volvo and currently used only in Curitiba) with a load of 270 people can board or deboard in about 20 seconds. The average speed o

f buses using the busway is 13 miles per hour--twice the estimated speed for buses operating in the same Curitiba corridors in mixed traffic.

There are five busways, each between 5 and 7.5 miles long, radiating from the city centre. The most recent busway was completed in 1994 at a cost of $1.5 million per kilometre. There are plans to add circumferential busways to link key suburban areas. Curitiba is a great example of a ‘like rail,’ BRT system with extensive ex

clusive busways, huge buses, more akin to trains; however the buses are considerably overcrowded and affected by increasing road congestion due to increasing affluence and vehicle use, Curitiba is considering other transport modes.

Auckland’s Busway

In New Zealand we have our very own busway nearing competition (2007); Auckland’s Northern Busway is estimated to cost in total 325.5million and will ccomprise a 6.0 km stretch of dedicated two-way roadway for buses in both directions and HOV lanes, having southbound access only in the morning peak, the planned two-lane busway will run between Constellation Drive and Esmond

e Road. Bus stations will be located at Albany, Constellation, Sunnynook, Westlake and Akoranga. A single 2.5 km lane busway will run southbound from Akoranga Station to the Harbour Bridge.

The busway has encountered controversy over the bus company tender process and has been criticised for not including cycle lanes or a bus lane on the harbour bridge, where congestion is expected to be high.

Depressing photo of what the Auckland busway website refers to as ‘Modern bus shelters.’

Disadvantages of BRT

One bus has space for about 50 passengers only; articulated or double decker buses may push the crush load capacity to about 100. Thus the BRT transport vessel has an intrinsic capacity limitation and finds its place on the capacity scale between standard bus services and rail-based systems. In Europe the bus driver's salary may account for 60-70% of the total operating costs. As one tram driver can drive the same number of passengers as 4-6 bus drivers, on high capacity routes BRT may not be the most cost effective solution.

BRT is often considered cheaper; and whilst construction and capital costs usually are, operating costs are not necessarily. In Boston operating costs per passenger mile of LRT was 32 percent cheaper than BRT; of rail, 50 percent cheaper (2002), and in LA their LRT was 24 percent cheaper than bus; rail rapid transit 22 percent cheaper.

When a dedicated roadway is only available for part of the bus journey the BRT system is still subject to traffic congestion especially at the entrances, such as in Adelaide, Ottawa and will be in Auckland. This considerably reduces frequency and reliability of service and can affect ridership levels as seen in LA or Ottawa.

As with truck traffic, heavy bus traffic with its high axle-load causes significant wear and tear of the road surface, and regular investment is required to maintain quality. This is a particular problem for guided busways, bus stops and similar situations where the wheels always pass exactly over the same spot, whereas rail lines can take considerable wear. A further argument against BRT is that the rolling resistance of rubber wheel on tarmac is many times that between steel wheel and steel rail (a factor of between 5 and 10 is often quoted).

BRT also suffers from images problems associated with buses. Some argue, they do not attract the ridership of rail lines, and it is not clear whether they can encourage secondary advantages such as neighbourhood revitalization and business development. Conversely, some South American systems claim capacity in the order of 40,000 passengers per hour per direction, levels that are consistent with some heavy rail, metro systems. Similarly, many more modest BRT systems may operate with daily ridership that equals or exceeds that of light rail LRT systems in other cities.

Environmentally, the majority of buses internationally are run on diesel and thus contribute to local pollution and climate change. I could not find any busways internationally that utilised trolley buses. Bus exhaust fumes also increase costs, where tunnels are part of the network; requiring large extraction fans to remove diesel particulates.

BRT on the Johnsonville line

Removing the rail lines is a step backwards and would place Wellington with other cities around the world that removed tram, trolley bus or train infrastructure and are now regretting the decision and finding the massive infrastructure costs to replace tram, trolley bus and train infrastructure prohibitive.

Trains can carry more passengers for the same price and are not subject to fuel price rises. In fact operating costs may be lower at higher frequencies.

The Johnsonville busway, unlike Auckland, will have to be a guided busway to ensure safety through the 7 tunnels; which under current investigations would be a very close fit with the possibility of buses fouling themselves on the tunnels. Adelaide’s O-Bahn is the likely model for guidance; however this reduces one of BRT’s advantages – its flexibility.

The busway is envisioned to be only a one-way system catering for the morning and evening commute to Wellington city, and does not provide for passengers who travel from Wellington to the Northern suburbs. It would be confusing and uninteligible for the general public who would have to figure out which way the rail was running at any particular time of the day. I could not find any busways internationally that used a single one-way lane. Planners gave up on the concept of a two way busway because it would be prohibitively expensive requiring massive earthworks and retaining walls. Rail currently provides two-way transport and as such provides a far superior service.

Having buses as the only transport mode for the Northern region would exacerbate already congested roads, especially on Lambton Quay, and would significantly increase road congestion – hardly a prudent public transport strategy. 30-40 buses an hour could be necessary for this route during peak hour to match the carrying capacity of rail, and this number of buses would result in peak congestion in Wellington city. Wellington city transport planners would have to bus-priority measures and in all probability close off some streets to traffic. This increased number of buses would increase pollution, noise and diesel emissions in Wellington city.

Construction of the busway would cause massive disruption to Northern residents and may take 12-18 months or longer. During these years commuters would switch to commuting by car and many would be lost to public transport forever. Hardly a sensible transport strategy.

Buses suffer from perception problems are the most unpopular form of public transport. This was confirmed by the feedback at the recent public meetings in Johnsonville. Buses unpopularity results from their deficiencies in speed, comfort and convenience compared with rail, and are also considered as a social accommodation – they are not chosen, but are ridden by passengers that are ‘transport dependent’ and don’t have other options. Edward Tennyson, U.S transport expert in his study of buses in the U.S. found that cities served exclusively by buses, passenger levels had reduced by 75 percent over 40 years; and in contrast, rail is likely to attract from 34 to 43 percent more riders than buses.

Another major flaw in the two bus based options is that it relies on fossil fuel based public transport. This is a major issue and must be addressed in the interests of sustainability. Public transport rates in the region have increased on average above 5% in 2006 as a result of increased fuel prices. Assuming that this current round of high oil prices is a temporary blip is neither: smart, future-orientated or sustainable. Diesel is a dirty, polluting and climate changing fuel source that comes from unreliable sources. The transport sector currently makes up 40% of our CO2 emissions in New Zealand and the Wellington region must do as much as possible to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, both to help limit the risks of climate change and also as a matter of financial self interest to avoid fuel price rises and probable carbon taxes. Alternatives such as an electric-powered trolley buses or using alternative fuels such as bio diesel to power the buses are possible but would need considerable research first, whereas the enhanced rail and light rail options utilise existing technology and infrastructure and therefore are more desirable.

Conclusion

BRT and busways are a technology still in its infancy and there are no shinning examples internationally to act as a model for Wellington. Other cities such as Curitiba and Adelaide have a different operating context that is radically different from our situation of a small compact and steep corridor that would only allow one-way busways. Busways are applicable in some circumstances such as far-flung low density suburbs not in Wellington’s circumstances.

Wellington would be crazy to go down this path, especially since we have a fully operating, popular and affordable train network that is cheaper to improve rather ripping it up and building a new transport mode.

# posted by gareth @ 5:33 PM