Brendan FINN

1
ITS Requirements for BRT in Europe and Developing
Countries

• Brendan FINN
• ETTS Ltd., Ireland

2
Overview

• Practice in bus priority and BRT
• Service plans and operations management for BRT
• Capacity constraints for high-volume BRT systems
• Vehicle throughput at stations
• Vehicle throughput at junctions
• Passenger throughput at stations
• Dynamic operations management could increase
  capacity
• Management of access
• Slot management along the route

3
Objectives of bus priority

• Improve operating environment for buses
• Running speed, total operating speed
• Reliability and reduction of variance
• Reduction of operating costs
• Enhance the network
• Core network redesign, availing of better
  conditions
• Service levels, availing of productivity gains
• Image
• Reposition the bus product with public and
  decision-takers
• Attract new customers, mode shift
• Transport, environmental, societal impacts

4
Levels of priority for Bus Transit

• Assisted Standard Operation
• Occasional priority measures lanes, junctions
• Extensive priority for standard operation
• Extensive or continuous Bus Lanes
• Quality Bus Corridors
• Bus of High Level of Service (French BHNS)
• Priority plus vehicle/service quality
• BRT
• BRT-lite
• Totally segrated BRT

5
Context of this presentation

• Bus Rapid Transit
• High volume contexts
• Large numbers of buses
• Multiple routes using the infrastructure
• Large numbers of passengers
• Operating Strategies to maximise throughput
• Efficiently
• Reliably
• Safely
• Technologies to support the Operating Strategies

6
Key elements of the BRT system

• Operating infrastructure
• Running way
• Junctions
• Stations
• Network
• Vehicles
• Operations management
• Operations control, incident management,
  supporting ITS
• Customer-facing services
• Fare collection, information, customer support

7
Operations Management activities

• Resource deployment
• Service control and regulation
• Operate the core service to plan
• Adjust the planned service to meet demand and
  events
• Monitoring
• Incident management
• At stations and adjacent areas
• Along running way, at junctions
• Vehicles and operational staff
• Data capture and analyis
• Review of plan and of procedures
• Cost optimisation

8
Technologies for Operations Management

• Monitoring systems
• Vehicle location
• CCTV
• Sensors - roadside, platform, in-vehicle
• Communications
• Network for fixed locations control centre,
  stations, depot
• Wireless, from vehicles and mobile units
• Applications
• Functional
• Analytic
• Integration with traffic signal system
• Information display and diffusion

9
Service Plan options

• Closed BRT system
• One route, end-to-end service
• All other routes required to transfer
• Standard Open BRT system
• Selected high-quality routes may use the running
  way
• Core route plus tributaries/extensions
• Some passengers transfer from feeders
• Completely Open BRT
• Running way is an open infrastructure
• Operator complies with basic quality and
  procedures

10
Example of Complex network

• Base all-day, all-stops trunk line
• Peak-only or all-day integrated services
• Peak-only or all-day expresses

Integrated Neighborhood, Line-Haul
Transit Center, Park/Ride
CBD
Integrated Neighborhood, Line-Haul
All Stops Trunk Line
Shopping Mall, University
11
Current Practice in ITS

• Advanced vehicle location technology as standard
• To manage single route systems
• To manage services at simple 2-4 minute intervals
• To manage services on dedicated, congestion-free
  routes
• Some systems do a bit more than that, but its
  not much of a challenge, is it?
• Real-time passenger information
• short-headway routes,
• single routes, every departure is the same
• easier to just look up/down the road
• BRT systems are using advanced technology for
  primitive service plans
• What benefit has it added?
• What opportunities has it missed?

12
Capacity is an issue in high-volume systems

• Buses at intervals of 10-20 seconds at peak
• 10 routes and route variants
• Multiple operators
• Hard to avoid some intersections with general
  traffic
• Stations handling gt20,000 passengers in the peak
  period
• Unpredictable arrival pattern by day, by time
  interval

13
Where do the limits arise?

• Three critical areas
• Throughput of vehicles at the bus stations
• Getting vehicles through the junctions
• Passenger throughput at the stations
• Potential problems
• Basic capacity to handle the demand
• Instability - risk of drastic loss of
  performance, capacity
• Queues and delays for passengers
• Crush conditions at stations
• Running way itself is not the problem

14
Vehicle Throughput at Stations

• Length of platform, arrangement of boarding areas
  
• Number of slots
• Fixed allocation or dynamic allocation
• If dynamic, how to advise and organise customers?
• Precise docking clinical, but lose flexibility
• Can we handle buses of different lengths, door
  arrangements
• Passenger processing, dwell times
• Separate fare collection/validation from boarding
• Level boarding, demarcation/protection of
  boarding area
• Management of the bus flows
• Passing lanes, (semi-) express services, queuing
  rules
• Strict operations control, departure management
• Rapid response to disruptions
• Station management, activity oversight

15
Vehicle Throughput at Junctions

• As frequency increases, problem escalates
• High-volume systems can have up to 6 buses per
  minute
• Need adequate time to clear queue of buses
• Random arrivals? If so, can have Q lengths of up
  to 10 vehicles
• How much green time possible?
• Turning movements by buses
• Requirement for cross-turning movements by
  general traffic
• Cycle time at the junctions
• If long cycle time, wave of buses hits next
  stations
• Queuing problems downstream
• Can partially overcome by using larger vehicles
• Less vehicles needed, but longer for each unit to
  clear

16
Passenger Throughput at Stations

• Passenger volume
• Total movement of people, boarding and alighting
• Transferring passengers
• Dynamics of movement
• Conflict of boarding and alighting passengers
• Internal movement within the station area
• May constrain dynamic allocation of buses to
  boarding areas
• Movement to/from transfer areas
• Limited area and width for median stations
• Fare collection and verification
• For median stations
• Safe passage to main pavement
• Storage while waiting to cross, conflict with new
  arrivals
• Number of opportunities and impact on general
  traffic
• Minimise conflict between passengers and vehicles

17
Strategic Operations Options

• Constrain volume to what can easily be managed
• Single end-to-end route
• Limit number of routes, fixed boarding areas
• (Bi-) articulated buses to minimise number of
  vehicles
• Plan to capacity, accept occasional degradation
• Standard intervention techniques
• Maximise throughput by dynamic management
• Manage access by available slots ramp metering
• Manage precise movement and timing - ATC style
• What is the maximum possible throughput?

18
Is Dynamic Management possible?

• Dynamic Access Management
• Continuous system state monitoring, available
  capacity
• Vehicle held at access point until capacity
  available
• Enters BRT running way under standard operations
  mgt.
• Dynamic Slot Management
• Continuous system state monitoring
• Slot assigned to each vehicle based on plan and
  current state
• Vehicle held at access point until slot available
• Enters BRT running way at allocated slot
• Dynamic operations mgt. for entire journey along
  BRT
• Must stay /- X seconds of allocated slot
• Slot can be adjusted dynamically by the
  application software
• Requires precise station and junction operations

19
Enablers

• Conceptual
• Dynamic management concepts
• Operations management methods and procedures
• Technology platform
• Location system(standard AVL)
• Communications (standard AVL)
• Information
• Vehicle location,
• Passenger loading, station status
• Intelligent software
• Slot development and assignment
• Slot adjustment and management
• Dynamic platform management
• Operations
• Field management, training, monitoring,
  incentives

20
Conclusions

• At the high-capacity end, three key challenge
  areas
• Vehicle throughput at stations
• Vehicle throughput at junctions
• Passenger throughput at stations
• If we cannot handle these better, capacity is
  limited
• Lower productivity, lower benefits, lower
  transport impact
• Current generation of Ops. Mgt. Tools not enough
• Technical platform is NOT the issue
• Focus needs to shift to delivering capacity
• Paradigm shift in approach to operations
  management
• Intelligent strategies and management procedures