Topic 6

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Topic 6 Urban Transportation

1. Transportation and Urban Form
2. Urban Land Use and Transportation
3. Urban Mobility
4. Urban Transport Problems

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C Urban Mobility

• 1. Urban Movements
• 2. Urban Transit

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1. Urban Movements

• Land use
• Specific movements are linked to specific urban
  activities and their land use.
• Involves the generation and attraction of an
  explicit array of movements.
• Factors
• Recurrence, income, urban form, spatial
  accumulation, level of development and
  technology.
• Urban movements
• Obligatory linked to scheduled activities (such
  as home-to-work movements)
• Voluntary free to decide of their scheduling
  (such as leisure).

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Types of Urban Movements
Movement Type Pattern Dominant Time Destination
Pendular Structured Morning and afternoon Localized (employment)
Professional Varied Workdays Localized
Personal Structured Evening Varied with some foci
Touristic Seasonal Day Highly localized
Distribution Structured Nighttime Localized
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Main Purposes of Urban Trips
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Typical Urban Day Trips by Modes, Origins and
Destinations
130 AM Delivery
1045 PM Return
1030 PM Delivery
Shopping mall
230 AM Return
Restaurant
830 PM Drive alone
130 PM Walk
700 PM Drive alone
530 PM Drive alone
Home
Work
1230 PM Walk
700 AM Garbage pickup
815 AM Drive alone
800 AM Carpool
1000 AM Parcel Drop off
Passengers
1005 AM Parcel Pickup
School (drop off child)
Freight
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Urban Travel by Purpose and by Time of the Day in
a North American Metropolis
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Home-to-Work Trips Modes, United States, 1985-1999
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Modal Split for Global Cities, 1995
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Mode Share for Commuting, New York, 1980-2000
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2. Urban Transit

• Context
• Dominantly an urban transportation mode.
• The great majority of transit trips are taking
  place in large cities.
• Conditions fundamental to the efficiency of
  transit systems
• High density and high mobility demands over short
  distances.
• Shared public service
• Benefits from economies of agglomeration related
  to high densities.
• Economies of scale related to high mobility
  demands.
• Transit systems
• Many types of services established to answer
  mobility needs.
• Variety of transit systems around the world.

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Private Vehicle and Public Transport Market
Share, 1990/91
American Cities
European Cities
Asian Cities
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2. Urban Transit

• Metro system
• Heavy rail system, often underground in central
  areas, with fixed routes, services and stations.
• Uniform frequency of services (peak hours
  increase).
• Fares are commonly access driven and constant.
• Bus system
• Scheduled fixed routes and stops serviced by
  motorized multiple passengers vehicles (45 - 80
  passengers).
• Services are often synchronized with other heavy
  systems (feeders).
• Express services (notably during peak hours).
• Transit rail system
• Fixed rail (tram rail system and commuter rail
  system)
• Frequency of services strongly linked with peak
  hours.
• Traffic tends to be imbalanced.
• Separate fares and proportional to distance or
  service zones.

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Largest Subway Systems in the World by Annual
Ridership and Metropolitan Population, 2000
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2. Urban Transit

• Shuttle system
• Privately (dominantly) owned using small buses or
  vans.
• Routes and frequencies tend to be fixed (can be
  adapted).
• Service numerous specific functions
• Expanding mobility along a corridor during peak
  hour.
• Linking a specific activity center (shopping
  mall, university campus, industrial zone, hotel,
  etc.).
• Servicing the elderly or people with
  disabilities.
• Paratransit system
• Flexible and privately owned demand-response
  system
• Minibuses, vans or shared taxis.
• Commonly servicing peripheral and low density
  zones.
• Door-to-door service, less loading and unloading
  time, less stops and more maneuverability in
  traffic.

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2. Urban Transit

• Taxi system
• Privately owned cars or small vans offering an
  on-call, individual demand-response system.
• Fares
• Commonly a function of a metered distance/time.
• Can be negotiated.
• When competition is not permitted, fares are set
  up by regulations.
• No fixed routes
• Servicing an area where a taxi company has the
  right (permit) to pickup customers.
• Rights are issued by a municipality.
• Several companies may be allowed to compete on
  the same territory.

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Components of an Urban Transit System
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Metro station
Transit rail station
Bus stop
Shuttle stop
Paratransit
Taxi service boundary
X
Express stop
Transfer
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Estimated Ridership of the Worlds Largest Public
Transit Systems, 1998
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Trips by Public Transport in the United States,
1970-2002
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D Urban Transport Problems

• 1. Geographical Challenges Facing Urban
  Transportation
• 2. Automobile Dependency
• 3. Congestion

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1. Geographical Challenges Facing Urban
Transportation

• Context
• Most important transport problems often related
  to urban areas.
• Urban productivity
• Dependent on the efficiency of its transport
  system.
• Move labor, consumers and freight between several
  origins and destinations.
• Growing complexity of cities
• Accompanied by a wide array of urban
  transportation problems.
• Some problems are ancient like congestion (Rome).
• Others are new like environmental impacts
• Notably CO2 emissions linked with the diffusion
  of the internal combustion engine.

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1. Geographical Challenges Facing Urban
Transportation

• Traffic congestion and parking difficulties.
• Public transport crowding and off-peak
  inadequacy.
• Difficulties for pedestrians.
• Environmental impacts and energy consumption.
• Accidents and safety.
• Land consumption.
• Freight distribution.

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2. Automobile Dependency

• Causes
• Advantages of automobile use
• Performance, comfort, status, speed, and
  convenience.
• Illustrate why car ownership continues to grow
  worldwide.
• Factors of growth
• Sustained economic growth (increase in revenue
  and quality of life).
• Complex individual urban movement patterns.
• Peripheral urban growth.
• Factors of dependency
• Underpricing and consumer choices
• Most road infrastructures are subsidized
  (considered a public service).
• Drivers do not bear the full cost of car usage.
• Car ownership is a symbol of status
• Single home ownership.

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2. Automobile Dependency

• Planning and investment practices
• Aims towards improving road and parking
  facilities in an ongoing attempt to avoid
  congestion.
• Transportation alternatives tend to be
  disregarded.
• In many cases, zoning regulations impose minimum
  standards of road and parking services and de
  facto impose a regulated car dependency.

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3. Congestion

• Congestion
• Occurs when transport demand exceeds transport
  supply in a specific section of the transport
  system.
• Each vehicle impairs the mobility of others.
• Types
• Recurring congestion (specific times of the day
  and on specific segments of the transport
  system).
• Random events (accidents and weather conditions).

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Recurring Congestion
Unused Capacity
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Average Hourly Traffic on George Washington
Bridge, 2002
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The Vicious Circle of Congestion
Congestion
Public pressures to increase capacity
The number of movements increases
New capacity
The average length of movements increases
Movements are more easy
Urban sprawl is favored
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Total Traffic Delay in Selected American Cities,
1986-1990 (in 1,000 hours per day)
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Traffic Conditions in Major American Cities,
1982-2003
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3. Congestion

• Ramp metering
• Controlling access to a congested highway by
  letting automobiles in one at a time instead of
  in groups.
• Traffic signal synchronization
• Tuning the traffic signals to the time and
  direction of traffic flows.
• Incident management
• Making sure that vehicles involved in accidents
  or mechanical failures are removed as quickly as
  possible from the road.
• HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes
• Vehicles with 2 or more passengers (buses, vans,
  carpool, etc.) have exclusive access to a less
  congested lane.
• Public transit
• Offering alternatives to driving.