Planning the structure of public transport networks in low density areas

Abstract

Abstract One of the important principles of modern transportation planning is that transport networks should be hierarchically structured. Thus, public transport networks are often divided into fast national and regional networks between the largest centres and local feeder services, often at different levels. At higher levels of the hierarchy this has obvious advantages in terms of speed, capacity, economy and/or safety. However, at the lower levels in low density areas the hierarchical principle leads to reduced services and also to increased costs to school buses and social transportation. The paper proposes a more integrated network with more direct links between lower level centres than exist in the hierarchical network. To compare the qualities of a hierarchical and an integrated network, two alternative bus networks were designed for a rural county of Denmark, Ribe in West Jutland. Consequences of the two networks were computed in terms of costs, passengers and accessibility, and it is shown that the integrated network is no more expensive than the hierarchical, but that it is likely to attract more passengers and gives the rural population better access to workplaces, schools and urban services. As a result, the paper argues that some transport problems in low density areas, which we today try to solve by dial‐a‐bus and similar expensive experiments, are partly created by the hierarchical network and therefore should rather be solved by restructuring the network.