DEGREE PROJECT IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2020
Modelling Layover Parking Capacity in Bus Terminals A Case Study of Stockholm
JERKER NYBLIN
MOHAMMAD AL-MOUSA
KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Modelling Layover Parking Capacity in Bus Terminals
A Case Study of Stockholm
JERKER NYBLIN MOHAMMAD AL-MOUSA
Degree Project in The Built Environment, Second Cycle, 30 Credits KTH Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden 2020
I. ABSTRACT
Public bus services play a pivotal role in urban public transport systems, they represent the flexible fragment of the mass transit chain in Stockholm county. It extends the high-capacity rail services reach by creating local connections to rail stations, by creating connections between local centres and by creating direct connections during peak hours to relieve the rail system. As Stockholm continues to grow, there is an increased demand on bus services and its facilities which has created challenges in providing suitably dimensioned bus terminals. Even though public transport operators have been using computerised solutions to optimise their operational schedule for vehicles and employees, the increased intensity of public bus services has resulted in an increased demand for layover parking capacity in bus terminals.
Several bus terminals in the Stockholm region are reaching their maximum capacity. Layover parking capacity issues are indirectly causing bus service delays and municipalities have strong interests in minimising the land use of bus terminals since they occupy attractive land near other public transport services such as underground and over-ground train services. The layover parking capacity issue leads to increasing operational cost, increasing environmentally unsound deadheading, and decreasing service resilience against service abnormalities.
The Public Transport Administration (Trafikförvaltningen) of the Region Stockholm recognises the need to have efficient land use for terminals. One of the most important aspects of a bus terminal s land use is dimensioning the bus layover parking facility. The proper design and the sufficient dimensioning of a bus layover parking facility is a e e a eed f e a aff c a e se their vehicle and crew schedules in order to provide a reliable, punctual, efficient and environmentally friendly service with minimal operationally inefficient deadheading between terminals.
I a e e , a d was carried out on bus terminals in Stockholm county. The study included literature review, field studies and a survey targeting public bus operators. The aim of the study was to create a model that estimates the optimum bus layover parking capacity at early planning stages for efficient bus operations in different bus terminals in Stockholm county.
The resulting model was derived by means of regression analysis from a sample of bus terminals identified according to the findings of the survey. The study found several bus service and bus terminal attributes that act as predictors for the optimum layover parking capacity, such as service frequency in the terminal and trip durations. In addition to what the guidelines of Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual 2013 suggest, this study considered the effect of scheduled connections between buses and the commuter trains, without the need of providing detailed information of the schedules of bus services.
II II. SAMMANFATTNING
Busstrafiken spelar en viktig roll i dagens kollektivtrafiksystem och i Stockholm utgör busstrafiken den flexibla delen av kollektivtrafikutbudet. Busstrafiken utökar de kapacitetsstarka spårbundna färdmedlens täckningsområde genom att erbjuda kundnära anslutningstrafik till och från spårtrafiksstationer, skapar förbindelser mellan lokala centrum och avlastar spårtrafiken genom att skapa direkta förbindelser under rusningstid. Efterfrågan på busstrafik och dess infrastruktur ökar i den alltjämt växande stockholmsregionen och detta skapar utmaningar i att tillhandahålla välanpassad bussterminalkapacitet. Busstrafikutövarna använder datoriserade trafik- optimeringsverktyg för att optimera nyttjandet av fordon och personal men behovet av bussuppställningsplatser ökar alltjämt med ett växande busstrafikutbud.
Nyttjandet i flera bussterminaler i stockholmsregionen närmar sig sin maxkapacitet. Bussuppställningsplatsbrist leder indirekt till förseningar och kommuner har starka incitament för att minimera bussterminalernas storlek, detta då de ofta upptar värdefull mark i spårtrafiknära lägen. Brist på bussuppställningsplatskapacitet leder till höjda operativa kostnader, fler miljöskadliga tomkörningar och försämrad motståndskraft mot trafikproduktionsavvikelser.
Trafikförvaltningen i Region Stockholm är av åsikten att bussterminalers mark- användning måste vara effektiv och en av de viktigaste aspekterna av bussterminalers markanspråk är ytan för bussuppställning. Välutformade bussterminaler med adekvat bussuppställningsplatskapacitet är däremot ett krav för att trafikutövarna ska kunna köra pålitlig, punktlig, effektiv busstrafik med lägsta miljöpåverkan och med minimalt antal tomkörningar som inte är motiverade för att höja trafikproduktions- effektiviteten.
I denna masteruppsats redogörs för en studie som gjordes av bussterminalerna i Stockholms län. I studien ingick litteraturanalys, fältstudier och en enkät- undersökning. Målet med studien var att skapa en modell för skattning av bussuppställningsplatskapacitetsoptimum som kan användas tidigt i planerings- arbetet för ny- eller ombyggnation av bussterminaler i Stockholms län.
Med hjälp av regressionsanalys utvecklades en modell utifrån resultatet från enkätundersökningen och studien fann flera busstrafikerings- och bussterminal- attribut som tjänar som förklaringsvariabler för bussuppställningsplatskapacitets- optimum, såsom turtäthet och körtider. I tillägg till riktlinjerna som föreslås av Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual 2013 tar denna studie även hänsyn till frekvensen hos tidspassade anslutningar mot annan kollektivtrafik men utan att kräva detaljerad tidtabellsinformation.
III III. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to Associate Professor Albania Nissan, Ph.D. Azhar Al-Mudhaffar and Kenneth Domeij for believing in us and for supervising our project.
Thanks to Mark Kesper at Trafikförvaltningen for going great lengths in taking care and effort in assisting us in our work. Furthermore, we would like to thank everyone at the Public Transport Administration of Region Stockholm who has assisted us in our work for taking time for our questions and for their valuable input. We would also like to thank Charlotte Söderberg and Johan Wahlstedt at Ramboll for their engagement and interesting discussions.
Thanks to Arriva, Keolis, Nobina and Transdev for their valuable input.
The authors would also like to thank their respective families for support, patience and love during the project. It would not have been possible to make this thesis without your wholehearted support.
T a e e a bee d ced d g M . M a ad A -M a scholarship period at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, funded by the Swedish Institute.
IV CONTENTS
I. ABSTRACT ...... II
II. SAMMANFATTNING ...... III
III. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... IV
IV. DEFINITIONS ...... VII
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1. Background ...... 2 1.2. Scope and Delimitations...... 4 1.3. Outline ...... 5
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 6 2.1. Intermodal Travel ...... 6 2.2. Reliability of Bus Services ...... 7 2.3. Design of Bus Terminals ...... 10 2.3.1. Classifications of Bus Terminals ...... 11
2.4. Capacity of Bus Terminals ...... 16 2.4.1. Capacity of Bus Stops in Bus Terminals...... 17 2.4.2. Capacity of Bus Layover Parking ...... 20
2.5. Reflection on the literature ...... 24
3. CASE STUDY OF STOCKHOLM ...... 25 3.1. Public Bus Network ...... 25 3.1.1. Contract Areas ...... 25 3.1.2. Bus Lines and Bus Terminals ...... 27 3.1.3. Interlining ...... 28
3.2. Bus Layover Parking in Bus Terminals ...... 32 3.2.1. Traffic Movements in Bus Terminals...... 32 3.2.2. Layover Activities and Amenities ...... 33 3.2.3. Assessment of Bus Terminals ...... 35
3.3. Demand for Layover Parking ...... 36 3.3.1. Service Variables ...... 38 3.3.2. Network Attributes ...... 41
3.4. Practical Adaptation Techniques ...... 43 3.5. Available Resources and Limitations ...... 47
V 4. METHODOLOGY ...... 49 4.1. Data Collection ...... 49 4.1.1. The Survey ...... 49 4.1.2. On-site Research ...... 54 4.1.3. Timetables and Scheduled Bus Departures ...... 54 4.1.4. Google Cloud and The Distance Matrix ...... 54
4.2. Data Analysis ...... 55 4.2.1. Operational variables and regression analysis...... 55 4.2.2. Network Analysis ...... 57
5. RESULTS...... 65 5.1. The Questionnaire ...... 65 5.1.1. Driver Pause and Driver Break Facilities ...... 65 5.1.2. Level of Service ...... 66
5.2. Eliminated Variables ...... 68 5.2.1. Facility Variables ...... 68 5.2.2. Centrality Variables...... 70 5.2.3. Eliminated Bus Terminals ...... 71
5.3. The Model ...... 71 5.3.1. Moderation Analysis ...... 71 5.3.2. Variables Selection ...... 73 5.3.3. Statistical Testing ...... 79 5.3.4. Model Validation ...... 82
6. DISCUSSION ...... 85 6.1. Comments on Bus Terminals ...... 86 6.2. Comparison ...... 89 6.3. Work Limitations ...... 93
7. CONCLUSION ...... 98 7.1. Future Research ...... 100
8. REFERENCES ...... 101
9. APPENDICES ...... 105 APPENDIX A ...... 106 APPENDIX B ...... 108 APPENDIX C ...... 113 APPENDIX D ...... 115
VI IV. DEFINITIONS
To make full use of the information in this report it is important to understand certain keywords and abbreviations that are not commonly used in everyday language. The terminology may not be equal to Standard English.
Abbreviations
Abbreviation Definition AVL Automatic Vehicle Location Bussbranschavtalet, the sector-wide agreement on the working conditions BBA for bus drivers between Bussarbetsgivarna and Kommunalarbetareförbundet. Bus Rapid Transport, high service bus lines, comparable to service levels BRT traditionally offered by rail HCM Highway Capacity Manual of the American Transportation Research Board Passenger Kilometre is a measure of movement of passengers by a PKM certain mode of travel that is equal to number of passengers multiplied by the total travelled distance. Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual of the American TCQSM Transportation Research Board TSP Transit priority signal
Terminology
English term Swedish translation Description A measure of the ability of the transport system to provide individuals with access to Accessibility Tillgänglighet land-use, usually a space with activities or a destination of interest A group of two or more buses moving Bus platoons Busskolonn together as a convoy, mainly due to lack of on-time performance. Where a bus stops for loading and/or Bus stop Busshållplats disembarkation of passengers. A bus terminal can contain several bus stops. Bus interchange where passengers can Bus terminal Bussterminal transfer between lines and modes. Further defined in chapter two The maximum number of buses that can Bus terminal Bussterminalkapacitet be served by a bus terminal during a period capacity of time with a given level of reliability. The practice of letting the bus driver drive Deadheading Tomkörning the bus empty between two points of the bus service network Break of a minimum of thirty minutes in Driver break (Förar)rast compliance with the terms set in the BBA. Pause of a minimum of ten minutes in Driver pause (Förar)paus compliance with the terms set in the BBA.
VII English term Swedish translation Description A public transport line which role in the Feeder lines Matarlinje network is to provide local connectivity for main/trunk lines. Software to optimise crew and fleet Giro HASTUS Giro HASTUS planning, market leader in Stockholm IBM SPSS A software for statistical analysis currently IBM SPSS Statistics Statistics owned and developed by IBM Corporation. Layover parking A place where an inactive bus vehicle can Uppställningsplats berth be parked Layover parking A facility or an area that contains one or Bussuppställningsområde zone more layover parking berths or equivalent. On-time Punktlighet Punctuality, adherence to the timetable performance An umbrella organisation for actors in the Samtrafiken Samtrafiken public transport sector of Sweden Turning the bus in the opposite direction at Short turning Avkortad linje a point on the route other than the terminal. Slack time Slacktid Unproductive time in a bus block. The practice of having a public transport vehicle pass an existing stop without Stop-skipping Genomgångs- stopping for the purpose of saving travel time. The Public The authority responsible for coordination Transport of public transport in the Stockholm region Administration Trafikförvaltningen and owner of Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (in Region brand. Stockholm) A set order of tasks/trips assigned to a Vehicle block Fordonsomlopp vehicle Stopping the bus at a certain stop if the bus Vehicle holding Tidsreglering längs linje precedes its schedule.
VIII 1. INTRODUCTION
Bus services play a pivotal role in urban public transport systems, they are often recognised to accommodate the larger share of public transport users (Pattnaik, Mohan, & Tom, 1998). In Stockholm county, the trunk bus lines ( he blue buses ) alone undertook 250,000 journeys on a daily average in 2012, which is comparable with all the commuter train services of Stockholm. For all bus services in the county ridership is almost equal to the metro service in Stockholm county with around one million journeys per day (The City of Stockholm Traffic Administration, 2012). On a normal winter weekday between 6 am and 9 am in 2017, the overall bus services in Stockholm county performed around 1,800,000 passenger-kilometre (PKM), a value that is larger than both commuter and metro trains each (AB Storstockholms Lokaltrafik, 2017). The attractiveness of bus services comes from the fact that they cover large areas and operate on regular road networks, since they offer more cost- efficient accessibility for shorter journeys in comparison with other urban transport modes that provide more reliable and higher capacity services for longer distances such as the metro system (Button & Rietveld, 1999).
Although decision makers in many European cities argue that travellers have a preference for rail-based modes of travel over buses (Varelaa, Börjesson, & Dalyc, 2018), accessibility indicators for those modes are yet hard to improve, they demand large construction costs and relatively high urban densities that would grant sufficient revenues to make those investments financially feasible (Ingvardson, 2017). Bus service e e a d, a e e f e b e f ag e f da a a c a , e offer space for route alterations and improvements. Whether to serve direct links to the railway system through feeder lines, or to relieve railway systems through BRT, bus services have established their role as the backbone in modern urban mobility, which Cheng and Tseng (2016) described as the n cle of rban rail ran i er ice .
The Public Transport Administration of the Stockholm Region got a mission to increase the public transport share of all travel in Stockholm County to fifty-four percent by 2030 (Stockholms läns landsting, 2017). Several hubs are due for reconstruction before 2030: Haningeterrassen, Södertälje station and Brommaplan, among others. Two of the goals for The Public Transport Administration in Stockholm County are for the public transport services to be compe i i e and mar . To reach the competitive goal the customers need to be satisfied, and to reach the smart goal the system needs to be efficient. The fulfilment of the 2030 goals would lead to increased demands on already congested bus terminals, which must be able to contain an increased number of services without a decrease in on-time-performance and without an increase in the inefficient practice of deadheading.
1 1.1. Background The continuous growth of cities comes with an increasing demand for bus services, where the population growth can be as large as twenty-five percent until 2030 for cities like Stockholm. Considering this fast growth, together with the efforts of promoting sustainable urban transport and the significance of the role of bus services in this promotion, the resources needed to operate an effective, sustainable, and comfortable bus services will naturally increase (The City of Stockholm Traffic Administration, 2012). These resources can include for example: capital investments in early planning stages, operational expenditures, overhead costs, etcetera. Among these resources, arises a conflict between two aspects of the service, those aspects are service quality and the infrastructural spaces dedicated for bus services.
A well-known example of this conflict is the exclusive bus lanes in dense urban centres. Exclusive bus lanes provide an increase in bus service speeds, effectiveness and capacity on one hand, on the other hand, they require dedicated spaces in corridors that can be part of attractive and dense urban areas like the ones in a city centre (Arasan & Vedagiri, 2010; Abdelfatah & Abdulwahid, 2017), this makes it difficult for policy makers to enforce dedicated bus lanes at the expense of other road or space users, even though it upgrades the quality of bus services.
In many bus terminals, a special parking zone is dedicated for buses when they are between timely separated departures, where the bus driver may take a break or for buses when they are waiting for the arrival of train services to provide a connection for passengers, this zone is referred to as a bus layover parking zone in bus terminals. Similar to exclusive bus lanes, bus layover parking zones usually require dedicating a share of the limited and attractive land for bus operations purposes. Municipal bodies and common citizens have a preference for reducing the footprint of bus infrastructure in attractive locations to enable other developments leading to higher real estate capitalisation and more vibrant places. On the other hand, public transport agencies in general, and public transport authorities in specific, prefer to dedicate these spaces for bus operations in order to optimise bus operations for better service reliability, decreased environmental impact and lower operational cost.
Before the introduction of optimisation tools for bus schedules in the beginnings of the 1960 (Lloret Cendales, 2019), the demand for resources to run a certain bus service was larger than today. Capacity issues back then were important in the negotiations between stakeholders when initiating transport investments, and attention was given to finding solutions with proper capacity. As these computerised optimisation tools started to surface and became the more common approach to plan bus services, the resources needed to run a certain bus service became gradually smaller as the optimisation tools improved and the already-established infrastructure continued to provide enough capacity to run bus services according to the desired quality. Therefore, capacity issues in bus terminals were considered a non-issue for many years whereas bus service volumes continued to grow.
2 This thesis deals with the new clash of interests that has started to arise in recent years since the opportunity for further optimisation of operations grows smaller while bus service volumes continue to grow. The issue is how much space should be devoted for buses when they are out-of-service or laying over in a bus terminal, and attention towards capacity issues in bus terminals have become indispensable again.
This conflict of interest over space usually creates lengthy negotiations between public transport authorities and others such as urban designers, municipalities, and real estate developers on how much space should be dedicated for layover parking activities for buses in terminals. During these negotiations, real estate developers can often present strong cases for their development plans, presenting municipalities with attractive offers for development of locations that are perceived as unattractive from a a e age c e f e , while public transport authorities often find themselves wanting in credible arguments defending their interest in securing adequate space for efficient bus operations. Hence, this kind of negotiations usually leads to an outcome that is unfavourable for bus operations. To improve the public transport authorities cases in this kind of negotiations a tool for better estimation of layover parking capacity is needed.
Insufficiency in the layover parking capacity has a direct impact on the service quality and on the operational costs that public transport operators have to endure. When a bus terminal is planned to have a certain capacity for its bus layover parking zone, the adequacy of the provided capacity cannot be confirmed until the bus terminal is operational, and then it is too late to make the required changes. This mismatch between planning and operations will result in buses deadheading from one location to another in order to find a place with enough space for layover activities. Induced deadheading due to layover parking capacity constraints increases the risk of operational irregularities, such as missed connections and decreased overall punctuality while increasing operational cost and complexity. In the longer perspective this leads to higher prices, more pollution, and less satisfied customers.
If the bus terminal has insufficient layover parking capacity for a certain bus service intensity, public bus operators will need to incorporate further planning techniques that can help the service to preserve a better quality, such as deadheading, but these incorporations come with extra cost for the operations, and the enhancement in service quality is not guaranteed. Also, due to limited layover parking capacity in bus terminals, and as public bus operators try to adopt to such limitations, the impact of the service on the environment will increase. Increased deadheading means more energy consumption, more emissions of air pollutants and lower air quality.
T a e e report, developed in collaboration with the Public Transport Administration (Trafikförvaltningen) in Stockholm region, recognises the challenges of promoting sustainable urban mobility, and the need to have a strategic tool that can be used in the planning stages to predict future layover parking capacity requirement, to secure efficient bus operations for a growing region while not unneccesarily curbing urban development.
3 1.2. Scope and Delimitations The main goal of this thesis is to develop a strategic tool that can be used by The Public Transport Administration in Stockholm county (Trafikförvaltningen) to have an adequate estimation of the optimum capacity of layover parking zones in bus terminals, which can form a basis for the negotiations of land acquisitions for bus terminals between The Public Transport Administration in Stockholm county (Trafikförvaltningen) and other municipal bodies during the planning stages of bus terminals. To establish this goal, two research objectives have been formed: