Adaptive approaches for the improvement of public transport in Latin American Cities

Apart from the best-practice cases where public administration has been able to manage the transit service network and implement a strong regulation system, in the majority of Latin American cities public urban transport is supplied by a great number of quasi-artisan operators in an almost deregulated context. The private providers secure an intense but essentially deficient and unbalanced supply. With the growth of the cities and thus, increasing trvel distances, the deficiency of the public transport system becomes more problematic, especially for the lower income groups living on the outskirts. Moreover, the extension of the service, supplied in an increasing number of small vehicles competing on the streets, effects the worsening of traffic congestion and pollution. These problems arise as soon as the public authorities are not able to regulate the transport industry, not to mention to provide an efficient transport system by themselves. The lack of technical skills to plan, regulate and control the services but also weak political motivation are the primary obstacles to solve the poblem. The political and social costs of major regulatory changes often discourage politicans empowered, looking for more vote effective activities and measures. In order to implement an efficient regulation system, a stepwise, adaptive procedure has to be applied, securing over years significant improvements and the maturing of the transport industry.

What role for minibus services in urban areas, in a European market segmentation approach

Regina Witter

In many European cities public transport, particularly busses, are unattractive and underused, due to the lack of direct connections, the need of transfers and the loss of time and comfort. Hence, this study aims at developing the business concept of an alternative or complementary type of public transport which enables a quicker and more flexible service and enhances patronage by using comfortable minibuses. First the business environment and the integration of a new service in the urban mobility market are identified. Then, in order to approve this concept, a concrete case study concerning a minibus service between the cities of Lisbon and Oeiras (Portugal) is applied. A mobility survey and focus group interviews are analysed to identify the current supply and demand. Based on a discrete choice model, a factor analysis and further descriptive statistics, the main target group of previous car users with needs of a quick and flexible transport service, particularly during peak hour, is confirmed. Besides, some user groups with a lower value of time and interests in a comfortable and easy accessible minibus service out of peak hour can be identified. Hence, the proposed service combines both types of needs, incorporating short routes, few stops and high frequencies during peak hour and an adapted, flexible service with significantly lower frequencies and the possibilities of additional on-demand service out of peak hour and on the weekends. At the end the potential risks for the operator companies are identified and the technical and operational feasibility of the service are critically discussed in the future urban mobility systems in Europe. However, before the real implementation of the proposed minibus concept, a deeper marketing research should be carried out, examining the expected demand for these types of services and the establishment of partnerships.

2009

How to cope with the planning process of public transport in Latin American cities?

Regina Witter

Planning and designing an efficient public transport system represents an important but difficult challenge for public authorities. Frequently, the lack of coordination between different public and private stakeholders involved affect serious obstacles. Considering related problems experienced in the city Santiago de Chile, this paper suggests a comprehensive planning approach that integrates diverging interests, such as engineering and social sciences. Accepting the important role of existing planning tools (Origin-Destination surveys leading to mathematical models, purely qualitative studies), further additional methods are taken into consideration, i.e. specific motility surveys and detailed GIS-based observations. The overall goal consists in the development of a comprehensive mobility information system that integrates the various methods and tools and forms a central platform for planners and decision makers in the transport and urban development field. Besides, this exercise offers an adequate opportunity to reflect about the advantages of new technology use, facilitating the process of information collection and analysis. The paper consists of four parts. After an introduction into the topic, the dilemma and tensions between existing methodological streams are sketched, ande their various strengths and limitations are emphasized. Then possible solutions are developed, such as the further development of existing methods, the integration of new ones, as well as the combination of all tools in the context of an integrated mobility information platform exposing adequate indicators. Finally, the paper concludes, exposing the strengths and drawbacks of the proposals.

2010

DESIGN OF RIDE - HAILING SERVICES FOR LARGE - SCALE SYSTEMS

Arseni Fedosseev

Today private vehicles in the cities is a high problem, due to the congestion they create, their pollution and their use of public space. Various alternatives exist, as public transportation and other modes, and still the part of people using cars remain too important. What makes the individual car so indispensable, and what alternative mode could replace them, assuring lower negative impact? The main advantage of the car is that it is the most convenient point-to-point mode: it can reach high speed and allows carrying voluminous or heavy personal equipment and multiple people. It is in our habits, and losing these features is hard to accept. It is especially the case for people that need to pick or drop somebody, carry luggage, shopping bags, or some furniture, or have to reach places where there is not any other alternative transport (as train or bus). In term of offered advantages, the closest alternative transport mode to the private car is the ride-sourcing service. Just as private vehicles, it allows point-to-point trips and has similar vehicle-related characteristics. However, ride-sourcing also presents some inconvenience, as the less trivial trip-organizing process, some inevitable waiting time, and the service cost. Still, there are some fields in which ride-sourcing could offer an important improvement – most of all it could rationalize and optimize vehicle’s use. In fact, cars can generally offer up to four passenger places and still mostly they are carrying only one person – the driver. Also, when the private vehicles aren’t driven, they occupy a lot of space on the streets, staying unused more then 90% of the time. A transfer from the private vehicle’s mode (PV) on the ride-sourcing service mode would surely reduce the number of vehicles in the streets. Also, this mode could be designed in a way that uses the ride-sharing potential, that would reduce the required number of vehicles. Gaining space on the streets and reducing the required number of vehicles could permit to reduce consequently city’s congestion and improve urbanistic aspects. There are already some Transport Network Companies (TNC) that offer similar services, as for example Uber Pool. However, the demand for these services isn’t high enough to evaluate their impact on the traffic. Also, the performance of such a service could most likely be related to the number of users, increasing the probability of ride-sharing trips. Various research have already been performed to put in evidence the positive effect of the ride-sourcing using ride-sharing systems (Santi, 2014), (Alonso-Mora, 2017). They show that ride-sharing is actually possible, can be performed in a dynamic model, and can be implemented in a manner that the additional waiting and travel times remain in the acceptable range for the passenger. However, these researches do not consider the speed variation, due to the city congestion. With the ride-sharing, TNC system should allow to reduce the effective number of vehicles, which should help to resolve the congestion, but in the same time, TNC system also involve additional operational travels during which vehicles do not transport anyone and still circulate on the streets. The congestion is a very important aspect that is also a huge problem for a lot of cities. For these reasons, it’s interesting to figure out what would be the ride-sourcing and ride-sharing implementing TNC mode’s impact on it. Also, such a mode could be subject to a dynamic controlling strategy to reduce vehicles’ number in high-congested areas, by smartly deploying them among various regions. This strategy is described in M. Ramezani’s (Ramezani, 2018) and N. Geroliminis’ works (Geroliminis, 2012). Building and testing a dynamic model with a described TNC mode would permit to evaluate the congestion-solving abilities of this type of system. However, creating an MFD based Dynamic Model would require knowing in advance some specific parameters that would realistically describe TNC vehicles’ behaviour. To estimate these parameters, as there are not enough existing data for this type of TNC, a Microscopic Simulation Model is necessary. The aim of this thesis is to design and build a Microscopic Simulation Model, that reproduces the described TNC vehicles behaviour. The goal is to obtain valuable insight on TNC mode’s effect on traffic and its characteristics permitting future parametrization of a Macroscopic Dynamic Model.

2020

DESIGN OF RIDE - HAILING SERVICES FOR LARGE - SCALE SYSTEMS

Arseni Fedosseev

2020