Bus Priority As a Competitive Factor.Pdf
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Simo Airaksinen, M.Sc. (Civ.Eng.), thesis pending, WSP Finland Ltd Virpi Kuukka-Ruotsalainen, M.Sc. (Civ.Eng.), WSP Finland Ltd Bus priority as a competitive factor Means of speeding up bus traffic have proved to be competitive factors in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area public transport. Measures to enhance speed are also financially profitable for transport providers. Traffic on the whole has increased considerably since The share of public transport in the modal split peaks the importation of passenger cars was deregulated in when public transport is faster than or nearly as fast as Finland in 1962. Since the 1960s, the number of pas- travel by passenger car. On short trips and in small senger cars and journeys made by car has quadrupled towns, walking or cycling is often an even faster way in the HMA (Sihto et al. 2003) while at the same time, of getting around than public transport. This is highly the area’s population has doubled and the number of positive from an environmental perspective despite re- jobs has risen by 80 percent. The rate of growth in ducing public transport. In terms of the competitive- passenger car traffic has outpaced that of population ness of urban regions, good, well-functioning public growth by a factor of eight; meanwhile, the number of transport allows denser development due to lower car journeys taken by public transport has grown at a rate density and lesser need for streets and roads. slower than the population. The share of public trans- The Ministry of Transport and Communications port in the modal split has fallen to a current figure Finland strives to improve the operational conditions of 39 percent. Growing traffic congestion is reflected and services of public transport throughout the coun- also in the efficiency, punctuality, regularity and stand- try. Speeding up public transport appears among the ard of service of bus transport. strategic goals and spearhead actions of several key operators such as the Finnish Road Administration, Competitiveness and speed Helsinki City Transport HKL and Helsinki Metropoli- of public transport tan Area Council YTV. For example, HKL aims by 2012 to speed up bus traffic by six percent and tram The competitiveness of public transport is a complex traffic by four percent compared to 2004 levels. concept. In this context, competitiveness describes the Bus traffic suffers from congestion caused by other supply of public transport relative to other transport traffic and, in places, also from the high number of modes. Factors relating to competitiveness include buses at stops. The goal in speeding up bus traffic is travel time, supply of buses and fares. Reliability, stay- primarily to increase average travel speed. Reduced ing on schedule, travel time and perceived smooth- overall travel time also benefits customers. The savings ness of travel account for roughly 20 percent of the achieved in operating costs can, for example, be used perceived total quality of public transport (Vanhanen to increase bus frequency or to lower fares. 2007). Measures to speed up public transport impact This review has been restricted to bus traffic in par- on all these factors. ticular. Most means of prioritising bus traffic lend 6– Helmi Location is verified Helsinki Public Transport Signal through satellite Priority and Passenger Information positioning 11 base stations Tram sends location data across the city The core of the Driver knows whether he is Control updates real-time timetables at stops system is located on schedule in Kallio Bus sends priority request Bus acknowledges priority Bus timetables are updated Traffic signal operation is at night monitored Figure 6–1. Helmi system specification (Helsinki 2007). themselves to tram traffic as well, while different timates exclude the rise in passenger volume attribut- measures benefit heavy rail traffic running on separate able to faster traffic and lower fares. tracks. Some 60 percent of all journeys to the centre of Helsinki are made using public transport (HKL 2005). Bus traffic has At rush hours, the figure climbs to 70 percent. Of become slower journeys to the city centre, one third are made using the metro and commuter trains, one third using buses Bus traffic speeds have fallen by roughly ten percent and trams and one third using passenger cars and oth- between 1985 and 2006. Key reasons include increased er transport modes. Bus priorities have consequently traffic and delays in the door functions of buses, which been implemented particularly on bus routes radiating include the opening and closing of doors and the bus out from the city centre. The challenge lies in trans- stop brake. The bus stop brake prevents the bus from versal traffic, where both the starting point and desti- moving while the doors are open and acts as a kind of nation are located outside the city centre. Transversal automatic parking brake. traffic has seen the most intensive growth in recent Slower bus speeds translate into higher operating years; however, it is precisely here that the modal split costs and a deteriorating standard of service. Traffic share and competitiveness of public transport are the slowdown is responsible for an increase of 6.3 million lowest relative to passenger cars. euros in annual operating costs at 2005 prices (Riiko- nen et al. 2006). This is equal to roughly six percent of fare revenue (HKL 2006). The aforementioned es- 6–2 Jokeri traffic signals Operating principle of Jokeri signals Ground state (no bus) Dark Bus coming Yellow flashing signal Fixed yellow Fixed red Bus passes lights Yellow flashing signal Ground state (no bus) Dark Figure 6–2. Operating principle of Jokeri signals (Helsinki 2004). Means and impacts of in HMA traffic: Eliel Saarisen tie, a roughly one-km stretch of road in the Haaga district of Helsinki, and prioritising public transport Maaherrantie road between the districts of Oulunkylä Public transport lanes and Viikki (Sane 2005). To reduce noise, part of Eliel Saarisen tie road runs in a tunnel, where there is also a Public transport lanes have been found to improve transfer stop for the commuter train station. The 1.5- the speed and regularity of public transport by 15–20 km stretch of Maaherrantie road features two single- percent (Ojala and Pursula 1994). There are roughly lane signal-controlled bridges and a metro service track 40 kilometres of bus and taxi lanes in Helsinki (Sane in the middle of the road. The public transport streets 2005). On most of these, delivery transport is also are a vital component of the Jokeri bus route, reduc- permitted outside rush hours. When tram lanes are ing route length by roughly 2.4 kilometres and travel also included, four of the six lanes in the cross-section time by approximately eight minutes when compared of main streets are often reserved for public transport. to routing along the shortest possible orbital bus route In addition, static gating has been implemented on city streets. The streets thus give rise to annual savings of centre access routes, at the first traffic lights on mo- some 400,000 euros in operating costs. The transfer torways. Traffic lights at the gates restrict the number stops and connecting facilities to commuter trains of vehicles given access to the main street network to built on the streets generate substantial time savings enhance the smooth flow of traffic. Bus lanes at the for passengers. Rolled out in autumn 2006, Jokeri has gates allow buses to pass congested lines of cars. become a success with some 20,000 passengers daily. The recommendations of the Finnish Public Trans- port Association are usually drawn on when planning Signal priorities bus lane reservations. In practice, each case is assessed Signal priorities may be implemented as either fixed on its own merits and the recommendations may not or dynamic, in which case they are based on automat- be applied. Lane reservations at rush hours would ic identification of vehicle location. Fixed priorities prove justified in terms of transportation economics are utilised e.g. when a green wave is interrupted at a even at quite low numbers of buses. stop. Helsinki has been a pioneer in providing signal pri- Public transport streets orities for public transport. The first priorities were Two public transport streets have been implemented implemented on Mannerheimintie road in 1958, when for the use of the transversal Jokeri route operated trams passing from the centre lane to the side lane 6–3 Time on bus stop Volvo, Ikarus E74, doors open inward Mercedes-Benz O 405 N, no automated doors Volvo, Ikarus E74, doors open outward MAN Lion’s City LL Mercedes-Benz O 405 N, automated doors Volvo 8500 CNG Volvo B 10 M, Wiima K202 Scania, Carrus City L 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Time (s) Figure 6–3. Door function times with different vehicles. were given priority at the traffic signals. The first ac- to implement more diverse priorities than at present, tual pilots with tram priorities were launched in 1978 in addition to which the necessary capital outlay is sig- (Långström and Sane 1998). Over the years, passive nificantly lower. long loop detectors, infrared detectors, microwaves Traffic signals that enable buses to smoothly enter and a bus-identifying induction loop system have been traffic on main roads and also facilitate crossing main tried out in Helsinki. Good experiences have been ob- streets have been designed to augment the Jokeri route tained with the Helmi system (the name Helmi comes in Helsinki (Helsinki 2000). Similar traffic signals have from the Finnish for the Helsinki public transport sig- also been deployed in Tampere (Tampere 2007). The nal priority and passenger information) currently in signals mostly remain dark and only light up when use.