Alasdair Cain

Applicability of TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit System of Bogotá, Colombia, to the United States

The TransMilenio of Bogotá, Colombia, is the highest-capacity bus rapid transit (BRT) system in the world and one of the best examples of a high-level BRT system. It demonstrates what BRT can achieve if high-capacity design features and operating characteristics are provided. This paper highlights the different capabilities of BRT as demonstrated by the TransMilenio and assesses the extent to which these capabilities are applicable to BRT operations in the United States. A series of observations is made in relation to the topics of passenger capacity, capital cost-effectiveness, achievement of modal shift objectives, urban renewal, business and institutional models, and politics. The paper concludes by discussing the various issues related to the replication of the Bogotá model in the United States. Perhaps the central lesson to be learned from Bogotá is that BRT is capable of playing a role in the achievement of much wider objectives, such as sustainable mobility and urban renewal, when implemented as part of a holistic package of integrated strategies. Committing to the provision of a network of BRT routes gives the city the opportunity to magnify the mobility and urban renewal benefits from corridor level to the citywide level. The relatively low capital costs that have made this possible, within a relatively short time frame, should also be of interest to U.S. cities.

Does Urban Road Pricing Cause Hardship to Low-Income Car Drivers?: An Affordability-Based Approach

A major criticism of the principle of urban road pricing (also known as congestion charging and congestion pricing) is that it is regressive, namely, that the implementation of a charging scheme is likely to result in the imposition of a disproportionately large financial burden on low-income car users and their dependents, thereby resulting in hardship. A road pricing proposal in Edinburgh, Scotland, was used as a case study to assess the potential for road pricing-related hardship. Hardship occurs when people are denied access to basic needs. A quantitative definition of hardship was developed on the basis of an affordability measure derived from the utilities sector, supplemented by two additional conditions to account for the fact that transportation in itself is not a basic need. By using this definition, it was demonstrated that households in the lowest income quintile already spent an unaffordable proportion of their income on motoring costs, as much as about 40%, whereas the affordability threshold was 32.5%. The impact of a £2 (approximately

Achieving Majority Public Support for Urban Road Pricing: Preserving the Driver’s Right to Choose

4 in 2008) charge on these low-income households would be negligible if it were paid less than once a week but would have a significant impact if it were paid four or more times a week, taking average aggregate motoring costs to above 50% of a low-income households total disposable income. A simple regression analysis showed that of the five different basic needs identified in the research literature, work trips were the most likely to be linked to frequent congestion charge payment among low-income car users and, thus, the most likely to be linked to an additional risk of hardship.

Impact of Miami, Florida, Urban Partnership Agreement Phase 1A on Transit User Perceptions of I-95 Express Bus Service

This paper contends that majority opposition from the voting public is the major barrier to urban road pricing implementation. The reason that majority opposition typically exists is investigated at the aggregate level by a consideration of the main factors that determine whether an individual will vote in favor of or against such proposals. Responses to a 2003 survey of southeast Scotlands population were used to assess public views toward Edinburghs road pricing proposal. Majority opposition to the proposal was observed in aggregate terms. A bivariate correlation analysis showed that car usage was the primary determinant of stated voting behavior. Further analysis showed that a significant majority of car users and non-car users agreed that urban congestion was a significant problem that needed to be reduced and that considerable support existed for implementing road pricing as a way of achieving this. It appears that the public dislike the concept of employing road pricing as a demand management meas...

Five-Phase Approach to Improve Design of Printed Transit Information and to Monitor Impact on Customer Satisfaction

With the use of pre- and postdeployment onboard surveys conducted in May 2008 and May 2009, the effect of the Miami, Florida, Urban Partnership Agreement (UPA) project (I-95 Express Lanes) on user perceptions of the corridors I-95 Express bus service was assessed. Because the majority of 95 Express bus users are commuters who use the service in both directions and only the northbound direction had been improved by the Express Lanes at the time of the study presented in this paper, the projects effect on user perceptions was significant. Although the service was already highly rated, the services ratings have increased further, with travel time and service reliability ratings improving by margins that were statistically significant at the 99% and 95% confidence level, respectively. These margins relate directly to the improvements in travel conditions brought about by the UPA project. Despite these enhanced performance perceptions, responses to other survey questions showed that mode shifts to transit because of the Express Lanes project have been negligible to date. This finding is consistent with the findings of the Florida Department of Transportation study, which showed that transit mode share remained relatively unchanged between 2008 and 2009.

Applicability of Bogotá’s TransMilenio BRT System to the United States

Transfort, the transit service provider in Fort Collins, Colorado, conducted a major design overhaul of its printed information materials (system maps, route maps, and schedules) to achieve the following objectives: (a) increase user comprehension of printed materials, (b) increase ridership, and (c) reduce printing costs while adding four additional routes to the schedule book. To achieve those objectives, a five-phase process was developed to allow the redesign task to be informed by research literature, transit staff opinions, and the views of service users. The new designs were implemented incrementally between July 2007 and August 2008 and were accompanied by a marketing campaign that informed and explained the upcoming changes. Ongoing project monitoring efforts indicated high levels of customer satisfaction with the revised materials and their new features and significant cost savings of 26%, as well as some evidence of a positive ridership effect. These outcomes provide an endorsement of the five-phase approach developed by Transfort and suggest that it may be useful to other transit agencies considering a major revision of their printed information materials.