Local Bus Services Research Articles

Evaluating Equity: A Method for Analyzing the Transit Accessibility of Affordable Housing Units

Improving transit access for people in low-income communities is an important consideration for transit providers. However, there has only been a limited amount of research on the transit accessibility of affordable housing units. This paper aims to develop a method for evaluating the transit equity of existing affordable housing units and propose easy-to-implement modifications to local bus services to increase transit accessibility levels (assuming housing locations do not change in the short term). The proposed method has three steps, and it is applied to three cities in Tennessee with primarily bus-based transit systems. The first step measures the transit accessibility of specific affordable housing locations and citywide transit accessibility levels using a web-based platform built using open-source software. The second step evaluates the transit equity of affordable housing programs at the city level using Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients, and the transit equity of specific affordable housing locations by proposing a simple inequity index. The results reveal that the level of transit equity for affordable housing units differs across housing programs and cities. In the third step, an example of a modification to a local bus route is evaluated for one affordable housing location with a high inequity index to demonstrate the applicability of the method. The substantial increase in accessible jobs after modification, from 135 to 6,400, highlights the potential effectiveness of implementing short-term transit service changes to improve the accessibility of existing affordable housing locations. This three-step method primarily relies on open datasets that are also available for other regions in the U.S.A.

A Model of a Limited-Stop and Local Mixed Bus Service with Increased Fares for the Limited-Stop Service

This study designs a limited-stop and local mixed bus service from the perspectives of both transit agencies and passengers based on a proposed optimization model. Close attention was paid to the increase in fares for the limited-stop service in the proposed model to offset the loss in bus fare. The objective function was to minimize the passenger travel time and bus agency costs; the decision variables were the stops for the limited-stop service and the headways of the limited-stop and local services; the constraints included the range of fare increases for the limited-stop service and other factors. The Lingo software and the genetic algorithm were compared in solving the proposed model from the aspects of solving time and results. Because the solutions for the model within the planning time and the influence of the global optimal solution upon parametric analysis were stable, the Lingo software was more suitable for the proposed model. Evaluations of the total costs for the mixed service and local-only service were carried out for different bus corridor lengths. The ratio of the fares for the limited-stop service to the fares for the local service must be within the appropriate range in order to take advantage of the limited-stop service. When the stop spacing and the bus corridor distance were longer, the mixed service was more competitive and noticeable.

Markets, Politics, and Environmental Policy Issues for Public Transit

Economic deregulation of local bus services remains controversial in terms of the claimed gains and losses relative to competitive regulation in the form of competitive tendering or negotiated protected monopoly. The uncertainty over demonstrable net benefits has delayed, if not eliminated, any prospects for unleashing market forces in London where competitive tendering is claimed by its supporters to be at least as attractive as economic deregulation in terms of quantity and quality of service. While the literature has focused predominantly on the economic and social impacts of market reforms, some of the changes have brought about environmental gains and losses. These rarely have been documented, being overshadowed by the initial objectives motivating economic reform. One particular feature of economic deregulation in the United Kingdom (and to a lesser extent in Australia and New Zealand) has been the noticeable increase in minibus services. The impact that economic deregulation has on entrepreneurial innovation has been neglected in the public transport literature, yet it is a centerpiece of competitive strategy. We use the experience with minibuses in Britain to show how markets create environmentally compatible incentives. Environmental gains attributable to market reform counter in part the negative evidence that minibuses in Britain have ““failed” to stimulate an aggregate increase in ridership. Without knowing the counterfactuals, one might speculate that the outcome would have been even worse without the introduction of the minibus.

Bus Transit Oriented Development—Strengths and Challenges Relative to Rail

While rail has been the focus of most planning for Transit Oriented Development (TOD), there has been recent interest in bus-related TOD with an emphasis on new bus rapid transit (BRT) systems in North and South America and Australia. This article takes a critical look at the strengths and challenges of bus-based transit systems compared to rail in relation to TOD. It includes a review of the literature and an assessment of TOD-related developments. The performance of BRT systems in relation to TOD is considered with specific reference to BRT systems in Australia. In addition, TOD related to local suburban bus service is examined. The article describes the general concept of TOD and how this relates to features of transit modes, outlines the literature relevant to bus-based TOD, and identifies the strengths and challenges of bus-based transit systems in relation to TOD. It concludes by summarizing the relative strengths and challenges of BRT and local bus services compared to rail. The findings of the review are used to identify ways in which bus-based TOD might be better planned and implemented.

Optimal Limited-stop Bus Routes Selection Using a Genetic Algorithm and Smart Card Data

In recent years, express bus service has come into the spotlight by overcoming slow bus operating speeds while maintaining its accessibility when it operates with local bus services. This study developed an optimal limited-stop bus routes selection (LSBRS) guideline as a scenario-based analysis and compared it with case study results. Smart card data and a genetic algorithm (GA) were used to develop the model with different scenarios. Then, total travel time savings as a result of implementing limited-stop bus service generated by the GA model were computed. The effectiveness of each factor was verified by multiple regression analysis, and the LSBRS methodology was determined. This methodology was applied to Suwon, Korea, as a case study. As a result, travel time savings were estimated to be 9.0–19.0%. The ranking of the total travel time savings proposed by the LSBRS methodology presented a similar tendency with that of the case-study analysis.

Investigating the Ridership Impact of New Light-Rail Transit and Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Lines in the Twin Cities

Cities in the United States and across the world are investing in high-capacity modes with enhanced reliability, including light-rail transit (LRT) and arterial bus rapid transit (BRT), to regain ridership. However, the impact of replacing high-frequency bus service with these modes is not well understood. This paper investigates the ridership effect of implementing LRT and arterial BRT on corridors that were already well served by local bus routes. Using data from Metro Transit in Minneapolis/Saint Paul between 2012 and 2017, overall ridership and frequency on the corridors are evaluated to distinguish between trips that were newly generated and trips that were drawn from the local bus routes running in the same corridor. Fixed-effects models are fitted to estimate how much of the new ridership can be attributed to the high-capacity modes and to the reliability improvements they provide while controlling for covariates. Results show that the Green Line LRT generated 86% more ridership and the arterial BRT A Line generated 12% more ridership than if the transit agency had relied on local bus service. These results demonstrate the potential ridership impacts of replacing and supplementing existing bus service with reliable high-capacity modes.

Adaptive transit scheduling to reduce rider vulnerability during heatwaves

ABSTRACT Extreme heat events induced by climate change present a growing risk to transit passenger comfort and health. To reduce exposure, agencies may consider changes to schedules that reduce headways on heavily trafficked bus routes serving vulnerable populations. This paper develops a schedule optimization model to minimize heat exposure and applies it to local bus services in Phoenix, Arizona, using agent-based simulation to inform travel demand and rider characteristics. Rerouting as little as 10% of a fleet is found to reduce network-wide exposure by as much as 35% when operating at maximum fleet capacity. Outcome improvements are notably characterized by diminishing returns, owing to skewed ridership and the inverse relationship between fleet size and passenger wait time. Access to spare vehicles can also ensure significant reductions in exposure, especially under the most extreme temperatures. Rerouting, therefore, presents a low-cost, adaptable resilience strategy to protect riders from extreme heat exposure.

Assessing the performance of public transport services in a developing country: A case study using data envelopment analysis

AbstractThe accurate evaluation of public transport (PT) services in developing countries is a challenging task due to a lack of reliable data and formal guidelines. The aim of this study was to develop a framework addressing these data limitations and quantify PT performance using output‐oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The local bus service operation of Chattogram City Corporation area of Bangladesh was used as a case study. A performance assessment inventory was developed identifying the major stakeholders related to local bus service operations. The relative efficiencies of different bus routes (from users' and operators' perspectives) were estimated using the DEA model, which incorporated data from a semi‐structured questionnaire survey linked with the inventory. The PT authority also ranked all bus routes according to their degree of efficiency. Results indicated that relative efficiency scores in various routes varied according to the stakeholders' perspectives. A range of different parameters were considered when evaluating the performance of the service. The proposed inventory and framework would be useful for policymakers and urban planners in sequencing and prioritising different routes. This optimisation process would provide improved transport services to the general public.

The influence of vicinity to stations, station characteristics and perceived safety on public transport mode choice: a case study from Copenhagen

The perception of safety within the public transport system is of high importance for passengers according to multiple passenger satisfaction surveys. However, among the many studies of public transport mode choice, little focus has been on the influence of safety perceptions. This study contributes to existing literature by specifically investigating the influence of perceived safety on public transport mode choice using a large-scale multimodal travel survey with 17,355 respondents and 42,438 trips from the Greater Copenhagen area. This made it possible to analyse safety at stations while still taking into account other main determinants of public transport usage. The study also includes walking distances to various public transport stops, e.g. metro, suburban and regional train stations, and bus stops, hence taking into account possible differences in attitudes towards different public transport modes. The results of a logistic regression confirm the hypothesis of lower perceived safety at stations being negatively correlated with public transport mode choice, but still to a smaller extent than that of service characteristics in terms of service frequency. The study also revealed that travellers perceive metro and suburban rail services as more attractive, as compared to local rail and bus services. Hence, vicinity to such stations was associated with a higher likelihood of choosing public transport, thus highlighting the importance of close vicinity to high-class services being of the highest importance for attracting passengers to public transport while perceived safety being of minor, yet significant, importance.

Partnership or franchising to improve bus services in two major English urban regions? An institutional analysis

This paper analyses two differing approaches to the improvement of local bus services, using the analytical lens of formal and informal institutions. Both formal and informal institutions govern the behaviour of authorities and operators, but they do it in different ways and they have advantages and disadvantages. In so doing we seek to understand both how the informal institutional approach (e.g. voluntary partnership working) can be used effectively, but also to assess its limits; and to understand why a formal institutional approach (e.g. franchising), in spite of its strong underlying basis in law, may nonetheless not always function. Through doing so, this paper contributes to the current understanding of how to handle the unintended consequences of a deregulated market through the different (formal and informal) ways available.

Diagnosing Obstacles to Speed and Reliability with High-Resolution Automatic Vehicle Locator Data: Bus Time Budgets

Transit riders consistently rate speed and reliability of service as primary drivers of satisfaction, and transit agencies can help retain and grow ridership by improving these components of service. The challenge for transit agency staff is to identify when and where they should focus efforts to improve service quality. Here we propose an approach to data analysis that identifies and isolates specific aspects of service that are limiting speed and reliability. In-vehicle travel time can be decomposed into time spent in motion and time stopped. Time in motion is often dependent on factors common to general traffic, whereas time stopped has some features in common with general traffic (i.e., traffic signals) and some unique to buses (i.e., passenger dwell). Other sources of delay from serving a bus stop include deceleration, acceleration, and signal delay. To improve overall travel time, transit agencies must prioritize interventions that will contribute the most to improving speed and reliability. We used high-resolution automatic vehicle locator data to assign components of speed and reliability within a trip-level “time budget.” We compared typical time budget components across service types, and used the time budget approach to evaluate local service and Rapid bus service operating simultaneously on the same alignment. Results of the delay and variability quantifications suggested particular interventions, as well as the expected size of the resulting effect. With limited resources, the bus time budget approach could aid understanding and prioritization of transit agency efforts to improve speed and reliability.

INTEGRATION OF UNIMAP’S STUDENT BUS ROUTING TOWARDS FREE CITY-BUS SERVICE LOCAL PEOPLE IN PERLIS

Free public transport is mean that the public transport is funded in full by means other than collecting fares from passengers. Free public transport can generate a lot benefits to the local people either directly or indirectly. Although Perlis is the smallest state in Malaysia, but there is some rural area doesn’t have a very good public transport service. This had caused problem for the citizen when they want to travel to other places. These problems can be solve by providing a new integrated free public transport service to them. In order to provide a new integrated free public transport service, UniMAP can cooperate with the local government or the local bus service to provide a better and integrated free public transport system. With public transport service, mobility is provided to the residents of rural Perlis. Free public transport services can improve rural economic growth in a various way. The local customer base for a range of services, for example, medical facilities, shopping malls, entertainment, education center services and other services can be increased. When more people tend to use public transport, it will impact on road safety cause fewer vehicles on road. Furthermore when fewer vehicles on road, traffic congestion, and parking congestion problem can be reduced or even being solved. Since the bus commute is something so significant in Perlis road today, this research is to examine the potential of integration existing students bus services extendable to Perlis local people to make advantage of the presence of the bus for their daily activities. It is hoped that this research will propose the optimized route for the bus to operate in systematic structure not only for the student’s essential but also beneficial for the local people mainly in Perlis state.

Transport industry adapting to change: An Australian case study

Growing governmental reluctance to fund local bus services is leading to increased interest in demand responsive transport (DRT). At the same time, the use of technology to facilitate access to DRT is creating circumstances for significant disruption of the way bus services are planned, contracted, delivered and regulated. This disruption creates uncertainty for bus operators but also presents an opportunity for operators to proactively adapt to better meet passenger needs and capture more of the market. This could involve diversifying their businesses, becoming total local transport providers and/or brokers, along Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) type lines, where the passenger is of central importance, rather than the mode of transport. The paper presents a Victorian case study that explores how the bus industry's voluntary professional association is working with its members to augment their capabilities and deliver DRT services, against the background of a changing contractual environment for delivery of services. The provision of a new transport business model, and the technological platform that supports it via their voluntary professional association, will enable bus operators to compete in the growing DRT realm and passenger services levels to improve, also supporting better social and environmental outcomes.

Assessing operation and customer perception characteristics of high frequency local and limited-stop bus service in Vancouver, Canada

Public transport agencies implement different strategies aimed at improving the operation of transit service and to increase satisfaction among its riders. One service strategy employed by transit agencies is a limited-stop bus service that runs in parallel to a heavily used route to decrease travel times for existing riders and to reduce pressure on the local route. Using bus operations data obtained from automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger counter (APC) systems and customer satisfaction data collected in Vancouver, Canada, the present study evaluates levels of satisfaction among users of a local and limited-stop bus service while controlling for the service characteristics these users have experienced in the past seven days. Our results reveal that after controlling for characteristics related to the conditions of the service experienced by users, namely passenger activity levels, patrons of the express route service were more likely to be satisfied with the transit service compared to users of the local service. This finding indicates that the operational characteristics of a limited-stop service, including in-vehicle time savings and higher route frequency, are highly valued by its users. Results of this study demonstrate how operations data can provide a greater context for customer satisfaction analyses. Finally, this study provides transit planners and policy makers with a better understanding of how customers perceive local and limited-stop service.

Public transport procurement in Britain

Britain is one of the countries with the most experience of alternative ways of procuring public transport services. From a situation where most public transport services were provided by publicly owned companies, it has moved to a situation where most are private. Long distance bus services, most local bus services outside London and a small number of rail services are left to commercial operators to provide without regulation on a purely commercial basis. Most rail services, bus services in London and subsidised bus services elsewhere are competitively tendered by central or local government. In the bus industry, both forms of competition have substantially reduced costs, but competitive tendering of services planned by local authorities has been the more successful in boosting patronage. On the other hand, on the rail system, whilst competitive tendering has again gone hand in hand with a large rise in usage, it has also been accompanied by a large rise in costs. Some possible reasons for this difference are considered, but it does appear that caution should be exercised when transferring lessons from one mode to the other.

A Comparative Analysis on Residents’ Reservation Willingness for Bus Service Based on Option Price

Population decline is a pressing issue facing Japan and other developed countries. Local governments in Japan are seeking solutions to insure they meet the daily travel demands of the elderly. Although subsidy for local bus companies is a highly practical policy, a careful investigation to determine its reasonable level is required. This paper investigates the option price of local bus services, that is, the willingness of residents to pay to maintain the services and attempts to gain insights on a reasonable level of subsidy for local bus companies. A comparative analysis among age groups and different city size groups was made. The result showed that elderly residents show a higher option price value than younger and middle-age residents.

Workshop 3 report: Market initiative regimes in bus, coach and rail: Recent developments, threats, developing paradigms and regulatory needs

This paper synthesizes evidence from Workshop 3 ‘Market initiative regimes: experience and measures to improve performance’ of the 15th International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport. This workshop discussed the growing importance of market initiative regimes in public transport focussing on the market and regulatory developments in three sectors: local and regional bus, long-distance coach and passenger train services. The comparison of these sectors illustrated impressive but also very substantial differences between countries in terms of market potentials, success of market initiative, regulatory paths taken and resulting performance.Various observations were made. The size and stratification of passenger transports markets in most countries or regions studied seemed to leave little room for direct intramodal competition, while there was more trust in the viability of intermodal competition. The lack of data was perceived to be a major issue, not only for research but also for market transparency and well-functioning. The development of new intermediaries for information and ticketing purposes seems to point at a possible gradual replacement of the ‘old’ public transport integration dogma with some new paradigm. There is still a lack of academic studies focussing on the process leading to demand and supply of regulation of market initiative regimes and of studies looking subsequently at the factors leading to the uptake of such regulatory tools or at the practical requirements for such specific regulations to function.

Using three-factor theory to identify improvement priorities for express and local bus services: An application of regression with dummy variables in the Twin Cities

To overcome the limitations of importance-performance analysis, this study employs the three-factor theory to identify transit service attributes that critically impact overall satisfaction of express and local bus riders. Specifically, Using the 2014 Transit Rider Survey in the Twin Cities, we examine how the performance of service attributes rewards and penalizes riders’ overall satisfaction with express and local buses, and classify these attributes into three factors based on their respective contributions to overall satisfaction. We then integrate the factor structure with their average performances to identify improvement priorities. We found that both the importance of service attributes to the overall satisfaction and the improvement priorities differ between express and local buses. Among the tested attributes, “vehicles are comfortable”, “total travel time is reasonable”, and “reliability” should be addressed first for both local and express buses.

Maintaining competition in recurrent procurement contracts: A case study on the London bus market

Under recurrent procurement, the awarding of a contract to a firm may put it in an advantageous position in future tenders, which may reduce competition over time. The objective of this paper is to study the dynamics of competition for tendered contracts, focusing on factors that may generate incumbent advantage. Particular attention is given to learning economies, sunk costs of entry and switching costs for the procurer. The paper then applies these insights to analyse empirically the evolution of competition in the market for local bus services in London.

Maintaining Competition in Recurrent Procurement Contracts: A Case Study on the London Bus Market

Under recurrent procurement, the awarding of a contract to a firm may put it in an advantageous position in future tenders, which may reduce competition over time. The objective of this paper is to study the dynamics of competition for tendered contracts, focusing on factors that may generate incumbent advantage. Particular attention is given to learning economies, sunk costs of entry and switching costs for the procurer. The paper then applies these insights to analyse empirically the evolution of competition in the market for local bus services in London.