On the perception of safety in low income neighbourhoods: using digital images in a stated choice experiment
The relationship between the environment and human behaviour has been studied in certain depth. We are now fully aware that the configuration of urban space affects individual actions. For this reason, modern definitions of urbanism include not only a responsibility for the physical aspect of the city configuration but also for the potential interaction between […]
Diseño de Servicios Expresos para Buses
Los servicios expresos, que en general se pueden definir como servicios que atienden a un subconjunto de los paraderos de un determinado corredor, son una estrategia de operación que puede ser beneficiosa tanto para los operadores como para los usuarios. Una reducción en el número de detenciones beneficia a los usuarios al reflejarse en una […]
An Algorithm for the Express Service Design Problem on a Corridor
Crowding in Public Transport: Objective and Subjective Measures
Crowding in public transport is becoming a growing concern as demand grows at a rate that is outstripping available capacity. To capture the user benefits associated with reduced crowding from improved public transport, it is necessary to identify the relevant dimensions of crowding that are meaningful measures of what crowding means to travelers. There are a number of objective and subjective measures of crowding promoted in the literature, with some objective measures being used as the basis of a standard of acceptable levels of practice. There is a disconnection between objective measures and subjective measures, the latter representing what matters to users. We illustrate the difference in a comparison of monitored crowding levels using crowding measures defined by the rail operator/authority in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, and the level of crowding experienced by rail passengers from two recent surveys to reveal the significant gap between objective and subjective measures of crowding.
O papel do transporte coletivo na visão estratégica de cidades competitivas
Barriers to planning and implementing BRT systems
Exploring the performance limit of a single lane per direction Bus Rapid Transit Systems (BRT)
Despite its booming growth, the BRT industry is still far from reaching maturity. As trial-and-error and empirical techniques were largely used as insights for innovations in design, some BRT systems achieved great successes in terms of performance and became world-class flagships. Other systems would be most properly classified as busway systems requiring major improvements. In […]
BRT e Corredores Prioritários para Ônibus: Panorama no Continente Americano
Oportunidade para Qualificar e Inovar o Transporte Coletivo por Ônibus nas Cidades Brasileira
Buses in Brazilian cities are trapped in congestion that disrupts both the efficiency and the reliability of a service that is vital for the population. The recent people´s outcry for a higher quality transit system, associated to an increasing private motorization in urban areas, demands opportunities for bus innovations that go beyond high-performance BRT (Bus […]
Evaluation of Bus Priority Strategies for BRT Operations
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) uses strategies such as exclusive bus lanes, off-vehicle fare collection, high quality vehicles and stations, signal priority, among others. Transit Signal Priority (TSP) is frequently seen as an option to improve performance of public transportation systems at the operational level. TSP is an operational strategy that aims at reducing the delays […]
Impacto de elementos de projeto no desempenho operacional de sistemas BRT de faixa única sem ultrapassagem
The performance of a BRT corridor with a single lane per direction and no overtaking is investigated, in terms of capacity and operating speed, by simulating 324 alternative scenarios. The simulation runs comprised a range demand levels, boarding and alighting rates, station spacing, vehicle loading, number of berths per station, and traffic signal positioning in […]
Model for the Optimal Location of Bus Stops and Its Application to a Public Transport Corridor in Santiago, Chile
The location and number of bus stops are key to the operational effi- ciency of the services that use them; these criteria affect commercial speed, reliability, and passenger access times. In the defining of the number of stops, a trade-off arises between reduced access time, which widens a route’s coverage area, and both the operational […]
Metrobuses in Sydney: how high capacity and high frequency services are benefiting the Metropolitan fringe
Effects of bus rapid transit on housing price: evidence from Sydney, Australia
Comparison of Dynamic Control Strategies for Transit Operations
Real-time headway-based control is a key issue to reduce bus bunching in high frequency urban bus services where schedules are difficult to implement. Several mechanisms have been proposed in the literature, but very few performance comparisons are available. In this paper two different approaches are tested over eight different scenarios. Both methodologies solve the same problem, the former based on a deterministic optimization over a long-term rolling horizon, while the latter proposes a hybrid predictive approach considering a shorter horizon and a stochastic evolution of the system. The comparison is conducted through scenarios that include three different dimensions: (i) bus capacities which can be reached or not, (ii) service frequencies, considering high and medium frequency services and (iii) different load profiles along the corridor. The results show that the deterministic approach performs better under scenarios where bus capacity could be reached frequently along the route while the hybrid predictive control approach performs better in situations where this does not happen.
Workshop 2: Bus rapid transit as part of enhanced service provision
Workshop 2 focused on the role of BRT as part of enhanced public transport service provision. Discussion topics included case studies around the world; improved performance and operations; and better contracts, institutional settings and enhanced policies. BRT was identified as a vital component of modern public transport systems due to its ability to provide high performance and rapid implementation at a lower cost than comparable rail transit. The participants concluded that on top of improving trunk transit corridors, it is important to look to the first and last kilometers and the connections among transport modes. In addition, it is important to consider all dimensions, not just the technical issues. The workshop identified the desirable ingredients for BRT success, created a table of bus based options for different applications and a list of research topics.
Transantiago, five years after its launch
We review the current situation of Transantiago, the fully integrated public transport system covering the Santiago Metropolitan Area in Chile, identifying its current strength, flaws and challenges. The system captured worldwide attention after its premature implementation in February 2007, before most of the infrastructure and system conditions required by its designers were in operation. The […]
Subjective valuation of the transit transfer experience: the case of Santiago de Chile
The still controversial Transantiago public transport system, in Santiago de Chile, has a topological structure that often requires its users to make one or more transfers to reach their destinations. This was rarely necessary in the previous non-integrated system and users reacted with unexpected displeasure when it started even though fare integration in the new […]
Analysis and evaluation of different headway control strategies for BRT: simulated with real data
Transport research needs
The Changing Publicness of Public Transport
Limitations in the Implementation of Real-Time Information Control Strategies Preventing Bus Bunching
Route choice modelling on metro networks: time, transfers, crowding, topology and socio-demographics
Understanding mode and route choices on a public transport system
Will bus travellers walk further for a more frequent service? A Stated preference investigation
Network planning of bus services requires addressing the trade off between frequency and coverage. Planning for good coverage of bus services using the rule of thumb that people will walk four hundred meters to access bus based public transport services means sharing the available budget between many services. For the same budget, the alternative approach […]
Citizens, Complexity and the City – Lessons from citizen participation in urban (transport) planning in Santiago Chile, 1997-2012
Twentieth century, citizen “revolts” against highway projects have influenced thinking about public transport (Toronto, Vancouver, New York), governance (Portland), and cycling (The Netherlands) to this day. Less is known about how these emerge in developing countries, and what they can tell us about citizens’ role in innovation to achieve more socially just, good and livable cities. Using a complexity-based approach, this dissertation explores lessons from an anti-highway movement in Santiago, Chile (1997), which challenged authoritarian planning paradigms inherited from the Pinochet regime (1973-1990). In 2000, these leaders of diverse communities founded a citizen institution, Living City (Ciudad Viva), which today is a prize-winning, citizen-led planning institution.
Participation is recognized as important to community development, health and urban planning. Nonetheless, a rich literature notes many limitations. Is improving participation just a matter of “getting the process right”? Or does it require re-formulating frameworks to redistribute power, fostering self-generating civil society organizations, and treating democratization as ongoing rather than a “steady state”?
Re-formulating frameworks has far-reaching implications. It requires acting consistently with the premise that the local is central to change in human living systems, and the need to create the civic “infrastructure” conducive to citizen learning and the emergence of multiscalar citizen organizations, able to mobilize ecology of actors for innovation. To effectively address the challenges of climate change, loss of biodiversity, the social determinants of health, the “obesity epidemic” and other issues, the answers lie in city neighbourhoods and human settlements.
If we aspire to good, just and livable cities, uncertain futures require planning for change. This research suggests that we can identify dynamics likely to leverage significant change and activate capacities throughout a system. This requires moving to an inclusive planning paradigm that fully integrates citizen planners.
Download the full thesis here.
Survey methods to inform policy decision makers on environment, energy, climate and natural disasters
Método de calibração de um modelo veículo seguidor para BRT e ônibus em corredor segregado
The car-following model is the heart of the traffic simulation software and it is able to replicate real traffic conditions in a controlled environment when properly calibrated. Still today there is resistance on the car-following model calibration and, even though many papers report calibration forms of this model, there are scarce references in the literature […]
Calibração de modelo microscópico de chegadas e partidas de ônibus em estações BRT
BRT Design Workshop Boston Briefing Book
