Kerb Guided Bus: Is This Affordable LRT?
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Kerb guided bus 51 Kerb guided bus: is this affordable LRT? With two kerb-guided bus projects operating successfully in Leeds and another having recently been launched in Bradford, Robert Bain interviewed Dr. Bob Tebb – First Yorkshire’s Operations Technical Manager – to find out why Yorkshire is fast becoming the guided bus capital of the world. The interview prompted Robert to look a little closer at guided bus, and its strengths and weaknesses in the context of innovative public transport solutions. On Sunday 26th March 1972, trolley- all compared to other city services. • Accessibility: At bus stops – on the bus No. 844 made its way back to the Although the concept was being ad- guideway or on ordinary roads – with Thornbury depot in Bradford; the last vanced in Yorkshire – indeed, a guide- the appropriate kerb height, the vehi- trolleybus to carry fare paying passen- way and equipped vehicle were oper- cle’s guide wheel allows the driver to gers in Britain. Over 60 years of trolley- ated on test from 1989 – Ipswich beat ‘dock’ against the stop, achieving uni- bus operation had ended and the ‘mo- Leeds to the post and launched its own form close contact to allow easy, level torbus’ henceforth reigned triumphant. guided bus service in January 1995. The boarding with a fixed 50mm kerb-ve- That event and its location are signif- Kesgrave guided bus scheme in Ipswich hicle gap. As part of the package of icant. Only a decade later with (a) trans- employs a 200m two-way guideway act- quality bus improvements, the East port planners looking at an impending ing as a bus gate between two housing Leeds Scheme partners rebuilt 350 bus fuel crisis, (b) much of the local trolley- estates previously without direct road stops in its York Road corridor pre- bus infrastructure still in place and (c) links. cisely for this purpose – thereby bene- trolleybus-trained staff still employed, fiting wheelchair users and those ac- the potential for the return of the trol- Why guided bus? companying prams. leys to Yorkshire streets was very real An early motivator behind the drive for and was being actively pursued by a guided bus in Leeds was the limited Preparing for guided bus in Leeds number of people. Indirectly, this led to land take required by this priority mea- The Leeds Transport Strategy was ap- Dr Bob Tebb, guided bus. sure. Although the width of a bus is proved in 1991 and envisaged a range First Yorkshire’s During a fact-finding mission to Eu- only 2.5m, traditional bus lanes are of solutions for the city’s most heavily Operations rope, local planners and policy-makers around 3.75m or 4m wide to allow for congested radial corridors. This was no visited the guided ‘duo-bus’ system in lateral movement/displacement. Take one-size-fits-all approach. Guided bus Technical Essen, Germany (duo-buses have two steering ‘off the bus’ – ie. employ a was identified for two corridors: the Manager and drive systems: a conventional diesel en- guidance technology – and you can re- A61 (Scott Hall Road) to the north and guided bus guru. gine and a trolleybus-like electric drive duce the cross-sectional requirement the A64 (York Road) to the east. These system). They returned impressed with (‘kinematic envelope’) to 2.6m. In are both tight, well-defined corridors how trolleybuses had evolved and, as a short, you can locate guided busways in with an absence, at their inner ends, of direct result, the subsequent Leeds places where bus lanes would be im- the sort of sprawling housing develop- Transport Strategy suggested a local role practical. And, as planners know to ment found in other parts of the city for the guided bus concept. their frustration, where urban traffic which makes mainline bus service pro- congestion is at its worst, roadspace is vision less appropriate. Interestingly, Guided bus elsewhere in the UK frequently in short supply. from a socio-economic perspective, the The first kerb-guided bus initiative in Bob Tebb points out that, although former was not necessarily the most at- the UK was Tracline 65 which operated this remains an attractive attribute, two tractive in terms of being traditionally along a former tram line in Birming- other system features now dominate strong bus territory. That would ham from 1984 to 1987, using double- over space considerations: change. deck buses. The service stopped after • Self-enforcement: Even minor traffic Feasibility studies demonstrated that three years, not because of any techni- violations (eg. parked cars, abuse by guided bus investment along both cor- cal problem, but because – somewhat other road users) can significantly ridors represented value-for-money understandably – this pioneering tech- erode the potential benefits associated (positive net present value). The more nology had been deployed on a ‘safe’ with bus lanes. Guideways with twin capital intensive York Road proposals route segment which experienced rela- concrete running strips – precisely the (£8m) suggested greater benefits how- tively little traffic congestion. In the re- width of a bus axle – and a grass or ever, due to financial constraints, the cently deregulated environment with gravel area in between physically Scott Hall Road corridor (£4m) was the many institutional changes, the new deter other traffic. (Alternative forms first to be introduced. Bob Tebb com- operator saw little benefit in continuing of deterrent – such as ‘elephant traps’ - ments, acknowledging hindsight, that with the experiment – despite a re- are employed on other guideways this was a blessing as the lighter bus ported 26% increase in patronage over- around the world). traffic – and the fact that there was only tec FEBRUARY 2002 52 Kerb guided bus tended to include another major bus operator (ARRIVA Yorkshire) in the East Leeds Scheme. Phased introduction The first section of guideway on Scott Hall Road opened in September 1995. An interesting characteristic of guided bus is that phased introduction leads to the realisation of immediate benefits. New vehicles were deployed but the key service parameters – such as timetabling, routes, scheduled journey times etc – were held constant. The op- erator reported a 9% increase in patron- age in the subsequent two months; enough to cover the cost of the on-vehi- cle equipment within a couple of years. Other works along the corridor (more guideways, bus lanes and junction re- modelling) were progressed as finance Accessibility is a one operator – allowed for an easier but less so with alternatives – was dic- dictated. major attribute of learning curve. Critical to the success of tated by financial constraints, funding As Bob Tebb points out, the evolu- the system. At the initiative, bus operators across the being made available in £1m/year tionary approach to the guideways and bus stops with the city supported the guided bus concept awards. The selection of kerb-guided complementary enhancement mea- appropriate kerb from the outset, even those who would technology (see separate box) reflected sures along the corridor will continue not be using the guideways. Further- the fact that other guidance technolo- into the future as new congestion ‘hot height, the more, strong support and goodwill gies (also separate box) were largely un- spots’ appear and/or other challenges vehicle’s guide from the other scheme partners (the proven at the time. for bus operations materialise. In the wheel allows the City Council and the Passenger Trans- The Public Private Partnership (PPP) meantime, peak hour journey times driver to ‘dock’ port Executive) created a positive envi- behind the guided bus initiative has have nearly halved and patronage has against the stop ronment dedicated to practical problem been mentioned already. Initially this increased by over 75% since that first achieving uniform solving. involved First Leeds (the bus operator, guideway deployment. Estimates sug- close contact to The implementation approach was to providing services with high quality, gest that between 10% and 20% of new allow easy, level identify congestion hot spots along the guidewheel-equipped superbuses), Leeds passengers have shifted from car. boarding. dual carriageway corridor and to focus City Council (guideways, bus lanes, sig- attention there, in terms of solutions nal priority etc.) and Metro, the Passen- The East Leeds quality bus initiative designed to allow buses to advance to ger Transport Executive (information, The East Leeds scheme opened on the the front of traffic queues. Incremental shelter provision, stops and so forth). 6th November, 2001 and runs along the deployment – possible with guided bus Subsequently the partnership was ex- A64 (York Road), a major trunk radial Kerb guided bus: What’s happening elsewhere? The first, commercial kerb guided bus Fastway network is to be constructed operation commenced in Essen, Ger- in three phases each taking one year. many, in 1980, followed by Birming- Approximately £17m of the costs are ham in 1984 (see main feature) and being funded by the private sector. The then Adelaide, Australia, in 1986. The cludes 2km of central guided busways route consists of 24km, 3km of which Essen and Adelaide schemes are com- in the £7m infrastructure package. have been designed as guided busway. prehensively described in the litera- Incidentally, six ‘half guided’ buses Demonstrating that this type of ini- ture (and on the web: see Internet Ref- were deployed in Northampton in tiative is seldom carried forward by erences) and still operate today, having 1996/97 along one corridor without a one organisation, the consortium be- been extended over the years. So too guideway. Docking stops were con- hind Fastway includes West Sussex does a small system in Mannheim, structed for the low floor buses (with County Council, Surrey County Coun- Germany – opened in 1992 and the guidearms on the nearside only) to cil, Crawley Borough Council, Reigate first scheme to provide docking stops.