Samuel Zimmerman

BUS RAPID TRANSIT. VOLUME 1: CASE STUDIES IN BUS RAPID TRANSIT

This report, which is published as a two-volume set, identifies the potential range of bus rapid transit (BRT) applications through 26 case studies and provides planning and implementation guidelines for BRT. This report will be useful to policy-makers, chief executive officers, and senior managers. This volume, Volume 1, provides information on the potential range of BRT applications, planning and implementation background, and system description, including the operations and performance elements. Volume 2 discusses the main components of BRT and describes BRT concepts, planning considerations, key issues, the system development process, desirable conditions for BRT, and general planning principles. It also provides an overview of system types.

Bus Rapid Transit: Synthesis of Case Studies

Bus rapid transit systems have grown in popularity in recent years. Spurred by federal initiatives, the spiraling cost of rail transit, and market realities, a growing number of cities have installed or are planning bus rapid transit (BRT). There is a synthesis of current experience, drawing on ongoing research conducted in a project for TCRP. The nature of BRT is described; where it operates; key features, such as running ways, stations, vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, and service patterns; performance in ridership, travel times, and land development; and the emerging implications for new systems. It is important to match transit markets to rights-of-way; achieve benefits in speed, reliability, and identity; minimize adverse impacts to street traffic, property access, and pedestrians; and obtain community support throughout an open planning process.

Vehicle Selection for BRT: Issues and Options

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is a flexible, high performance rapid transit mode that combines facilities, equipment, service and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) elements into a permanently integrated system with a quality image and unique identity. Vehicles are an extremely important component of BRT systems, because they not only contribute significantly to BRTs image and identity, but also play a strong role in achieving measurable performance success. Vehicle related planning and design issues confront BRT planners in these seven basic areas: capacity, external dimensions; internal layout; doors; floor height; propulsion systems; vehicle guidance; and aesthetics, identity and branding. This paper draws heavily on 26 case studies documented in TCRP Project A-23. It also reflects experience from newer BRT systems and concludes with a series of general principles and guidelines for vehicle design, selection, and use in BRT applications.

Toward Sustainable Mobility in Urban India

With rapid growth in the number of personal motor vehicles, Indian cities have been facing increasing congestion and worsening air quality. Yet until early 2005 little attention was paid to this problem, and remedial measures were focused largely on overpasses and new roadway capacity. Only Delhi, Calcutta, and Chennai had built functioning metro rail systems. However, by the second half of 2006, barely a year and a half later, the situation changed considerably, and public transport became the focus of attention in most large and medium-sized cities. This paper looks at the national initiatives that helped bring about those changes. The adoption of a national urban transport policy along with the launching of a national urban renewal mission with a sizable commitment of funds helped focus attention on improving public transportation. These were supplemented by a series of well-conceived and -planned initiatives, again led by the national government, to generate more widespread awareness of urban mobility problems and how they could be successfully addressed. The results were visible in a mere 18 months, by which time several cities had already formulated plans for significantly improved public transport and the first incremental phase of what will be Indias first bus rapid transit system had become operational.

Bus Rapid Transit in New York City: Corridor Evaluation and Screening

Selecting corridors for implementing bus rapid transit (BRT) projects in most communities is relatively straightforward; however, in cities such as New York, this is far more complicated because of the large numbers of corridors with many characteristics compatible with BRT provision. This paper describes the framework developed to evaluate and screen corridors in New York City for five demonstration BRT projects. A mechanism was identified to reduce the number of candidate corridors from 80 to 36 at an early stage. An evaluation framework building on the previous work and detailed field observations further refined the list from 36 corridors to 15. The evaluation included two key considerations: the potential benefits of BRT implementation in a given corridor and the potential ease of implementation of BRT in that corridor. The study team defined a series of measures to reflect these key considerations (four measures for each). The relative ranking of the 36 corridors showed how each corridor performed w...

Distribution of regional vehicle miles of travel to large zones for sketch planning

Abstract The basic feature of a sketch planning model is the relatively fast processing of a minimal amount of data to provide better than order of magnitude information about a proposed transportation plan. The goal is not a finely detailed analysis of an alternative, but rather an idea of its relative worth as compared to other alternatives on the basis of a range of impacts. Effects are desired, not only at the regional level, but also subregionally, with the level of disaggregation being such that it provides a general, but useful, degree of localization. An approach is developed for distributing travel about a region subdivided into zones with an average size of about 10–15 square miles and ranging in size from 6 to 30 square miles. Distance is used as the travel impedance parameter and time ratio is the determining factor for diversion to freeways. An exponential distance distribution formulation is used which has been empirically shown to hold in several regions and which enables the development of an approach requiring almost no calibration. Test results of the approach in two metropolitan areas of distinctly different character indicate that the analysis does represent a reasonable solution to the problem of distributing travel, by facility type, in a region composed of rather large zones.