A Comprehensive Methodology for Comparative Performance Evaluation of Public Transport Systems in Urban Areas

Abstract

The implementation of a new public transport system requires a huge amount of funds mainly in infrastructure, construction and maintenance. Hence, prior to making investment in transport technologies, poor economic condition and limitation of the infrastructure facilities, there is a continued need to improve the performance of public transport system in urban areas in developing countries. However, the performance improvement of public transport system is a complicated process because it can be viewed through three different perspectives i.e. user, operator and city perspectives. Hence, for efficient operation and sustainability, the requirements of these three perspectives should be met with. The performance evaluation process is useful for monitoring, controlling and improving the facilities of public transport systems in relation to different aspects from different perspectives. However, most of the studies are not structured considering all three perspectives in a simple manner so that cannot find significant comparative information for performance evaluation of public transport systems in urban areas. Therefore, this study presents a comprehensive methodology for comparative performance evaluation of public transport system from user, city and operator perspective as well as combined in urban areas. The methodology proposed in this study is also illustrated using BCLL bus system and Mini bus system in Bhopal city. It is expected that this study will be useful to take significant decisions before implementation of new system or alteration in existing system and performance improvement of existing urban transport system in developing countries.