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Bus rapid transit systems and beyond Exploring the limits of a popular and rapidly growing urban transport system David Sorg Advising Professor: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Weidmann, IVT ETH Zürich Supervisor: MSc ETH SD&IS Nelson Carrasco, IVT ETH Zürich Master Thesis MSc in Spatial Development and Infrastructure Systems July 2011 Bus rapid transit systems and beyond ________________________________________________________ July 2011 Acknowledgements I want to thank the following persons for their highly appreciated contributions and inputs. This work would not have been possible without their valuable support. Prof. Dr. U. Weidmann and Nelson Carrasco benevolently accepted to supervise this master thesis and assumed this task with great enthusiasm and commitment. Their con- stant and competent support, feedbacks, suggestions, and critique vitally contributed to guide and improve this work. Nicolas Leyva, Wolfgang Forderer, and Patrick Daude from the network „cities for mo- bility‟ in Stuttgart helped to develop the idea of this work. Their interest in the findings and results greatly contributed to the motivation and impetus that guided this work. Rebecca Bechstein, Flurin Feldmann, Gerold Signer, and Reto Rieder made crucial con- tributions to the quality of this work by their patient and persistent support in proofread- ing, commenting, and correcting. In exchange, they are experts in BRT systems by now. Finally, my family and close friends always provided invaluable support, backing, and motivation during my entire studies. Without their help, all this would not have been possible. References for the images on the title page: URL (2011a, b) I Bus rapid transit systems and beyond ________________________________________________________ July 2011 Table of contents Deutsche Zusammenfassung ....................................................................................... 3 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Objectives and tasks ................................................................................................. 6 1.2 Constraints ................................................................................................................ 7 2 Bus rapid transit: a new transport mode? ............................................................ 8 2.1 Defining BRT: what makes bus transit “rapid”? ........................................................ 9 2.2 Origins and evolution of bus rapid transit ............................................................... 13 2.3 Chapter review ........................................................................................................ 17 3 Organising the BRT spectrum: system parameters and classification ................18 3.1 Segregation matters: BRT and BHLS ..................................................................... 18 3.2 Configuration matters: BRT cluster analysis .......................................................... 19 3.3 BRT classes ............................................................................................................ 26 3.4 Chapter review ........................................................................................................ 31 4 Perspectives on system performance .................................................................35 4.1 Actors and their needs ............................................................................................ 35 4.2 Planning for performance ....................................................................................... 37 4.3 Quality – the user’s perspective ............................................................................. 40 4.4 Quality levels of BRT systems ................................................................................ 47 4.5 Capacity – the operator’s perspective .................................................................... 67 4.6 Cost-efficiency – the community’s perspective ...................................................... 73 4.7 Chapter review ........................................................................................................ 75 5 BRT and beyond: comparing modes ..................................................................77 5.1 System alternatives to BRT .................................................................................... 78 5.2 Money matters: financial comparisons ................................................................... 79 5.3 Beyond money: comparing costs, capacity and quality .......................................... 81 5.4 Additional selection criteria for public transport modes ........................................ 104 5.5 The general picture: a qualitative mode comparison ............................................ 106 II Bus rapid transit systems and beyond ________________________________________________________ July 2011 5.6 Chapter review ...................................................................................................... 106 6 Improving BRT systems ................................................................................... 108 6.1 Case studies and success factors ........................................................................ 108 6.2 When to improve and when to consider other modes? ........................................ 112 6.3 Chapter review ...................................................................................................... 115 7 Synthesis ......................................................................................................... 117 7.1 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 117 7.2 Relevance of the results ....................................................................................... 118 7.3 Further research ................................................................................................... 119 8 References ....................................................................................................... 121 9 Glossary ........................................................................................................... 125 III Bus rapid transit systems and beyond ________________________________________________________ July 2011 List of tables Table 1 BRT characteristics and dimensions .........................................................11 Table 2 A classification framework for BRT ............................................................20 Table 3 Calculation rules for BRT dimension scores ..............................................25 Table 4 BRT system examples, listed by class and continent ................................30 Table 5 Summary of BRT classes and corresponding rail-based systems .............32 Table 6 Requirements of different actors towards transport systems .....................36 Table 7 Control parameters in strategic planning ...................................................38 Table 8 Quality criteria, indicators, and problems: the selection of this work ..........44 Table 9 BRT dimensions affecting quality criteria ...................................................48 Table 10 BRT classes and quality criteria ................................................................66 Table 11 Line capacities and operating costs for different modes in a model network ..................................................................................................................85 Table 12 Unit capacity, vehicle type and operating speed of BRT classes ...............87 Table 13 Maximum headway [min] of systems to meet demand ..............................90 Table 14 Quality differences between BRT heavy and LRT .....................................92 Table 15 Additional selection criteria for PT modes ............................................... 104 Table 16 Qualitative mode comparison .................................................................. 106 Table 17 Direct comparison of results between of the clustering methods linkage between groups and furthest neighbour .................................................. 131 Table 18 Key figures of BRT systems in different classes ...................................... 132 IV Bus rapid transit systems and beyond ________________________________________________________ July 2011 List of figures Figure 1 Irisbus Civis: an optically guided trolleybus system in Castellón (Spain) ...15 Figure 2 The increasing number of BRT systems in recent years............................16 Figure 3 Colombian and Brazilian BRT systems compared .....................................23 Figure 4 Main dimensions of selected Colombian and Brazilian BRT systems ........25 Figure 5 Hierarchical cluster analysis with the method linkage between groups ......27 Figure 6 Average dimension scores of BRT classes ...............................................28 Figure 7 The heavy BRT system of Quito (Ecuador) operating in a narrow street space ........................................................................................................39 Figure 8 Customer information (and unreliability) on the Zürich bus line 69 ............52 Figure 9 Station spacing, headway, and station dwell time compared to commercial speed ........................................................................................................54 Figure 10 Commercial speed compared to system costs ..........................................56

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