Moving the Masses: Bus-Rapid Transit (BRT) Policies in Low Income Asian Cities

This paper addresses academic discourse that critiques urban rail transit projects for their regressive impacts on the poor and proposes bus funding as a more equitable investment for urban transit agencies. The author analyzed data from the 2012 California Household Travel Survey on transit trips in Los Angeles County. The author cross-tabulated data on the modal breakdown of transit trips by household income category and on the breakdown of household income associated with trips by bus and rail transit modes. The author also comparatively evaluated the speed of trips (as a ratio of miles per hour) taken by rail and by bus by low-income households in the county. The author found convincing evidence that, on average, trips low-income households made by rail transit covered a greater distance per hour than trips taken by bus transit, but that trips made on the county’s bus rapid transit services with dedicated rights-of-way had a higher mean speed than those taken by rail. Moreover, the mode and income cross-tabulations indicate that rail transit projects only partially serve low-income households’ travel needs. To the extent that equitable transit planning entails minimizing the disparities in access, both rail and bus rapid transit projects can advance social justice if they are targeted at corridors where they can serve travel demand by low-income, transit dependent households.

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Do Bus Rapid Transit Systems Improve Accessibility to Job Opportunities for the Poor? The Case of Lima, Peru

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11102795 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (10) ◽

pp. 2795 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Daniel Oviedo ◽

Lynn Scholl ◽

Marco Innao ◽

Lauramaria Pedraza

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Public Transport ◽

Public Transit ◽

Double Difference ◽

Bus Rapid Transit ◽

Rapid Transit ◽

Policy Objective ◽

The Poor ◽

High Concentrations ◽

The City

Investments in public transit infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean often aim to reduce spatial and social inequalities by improving accessibility to jobs and other opportunities for vulnerable populations. One of the central goals of Lima’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project was to connect low-income populations living in the peripheries to jobs in the city center, a policy objective that has not yet been evaluated. Building on secondary datasets of employment, household socio-demographics and origin–destination surveys before and after the BRT began operations, this paper examines the contribution of Lima’s BRT system to accessibility to employment in the city, particularly for low-income public transit users. We estimated the effects on potential accessibility to employment, comparing impacts on lower versus higher income populations, and assessed the changes in location-based accessibility to employment before (2004) and after implementation (2012) for treatment and comparison groups. We found that the BRT line reduced travel times for commuters to reach jobs, in comparison with traditional public transport in the city. However, the coverage of the BRT declines in areas with high concentrations of poor populations, limiting the equitability of accessibility improvements. The analysis by socioeconomic sub-groups found positive effects of the BRT system on accessibility for the higher income areas. Relative to the control group, accessibility increased in the 10-km boundary area of the BRT by 0.01, a seven percent increase relative to the treatment baseline accessibility index in the higher socioeconomic (SES) areas of the city. In contrast, in the areas with high concentrations of lower SES populations, the double difference estimate indicated an 11 percent decrease relative to the baseline accessibility index (0.09). We build on case-specific findings and international literature to reflect on policy avenues to include the poor in the mobility benefits of BRT systems. These measures include targeted fare subsidies for low-income groups, fare integration with other forms of public transport that reduce the cost of transfers, and the increase of coverage of the BRT through the integration of stations with non-motorized infrastructure.

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The new BRT system has led to an overall increase in transit-based accessibility to essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic: Empirical evidence from Winnipeg, Canada

10.31219/osf.io/anjd7 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Suraj Shirodkar Singh ◽

Reyhane Javanmard ◽

Jinhyung Lee ◽

Junghwan Kim ◽

Ehab Diab

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Bus Rapid Transit ◽

Time Budgets ◽

Rapid Transit ◽

Transit Network ◽

Essential Services ◽

Before And After ◽

In Transit ◽

Different Parts

Recently, in Winnipeg, the implementation of new bus rapid transit (BRT) system in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic has raised many concerns, challenging the rationale behind the untimely release. However, the new BRT service can benefit low-income, socio-economically vulnerable, and transit captive passengers who must travel to essential services and work opportunities during the pandemic. This study evaluates whether the new BRT system has positive impacts on accessibility to such essential services during the pandemic. Isochrones with different time budgets as well as times of a day are generated based on high-resolution public transit network via the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data and used for evaluating accessibility benefits before and after the BRT construction. The new BRT service in Winnipeg demonstrates varying accessibility impacts across different parts of the BRT corridor. Areas near dedicated lane-section show a significant increase, whereas areas near non-dedicated lane sections show a decrease in accessibility. Nevertheless, across the whole BRT corridor, the new BRT service presents an overall increase in accessibility to essential services. This demonstrates the positive accessibility benefits of the new BRT service to residents seeking essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic. A decrease in accessibility along some parts suggests the necessity of using local transit improvement strategies (e.g., dedicated lanes) to improve service speed when planning BRT services within urban areas.

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Do Bus Rapid Transit Systems Improve Accessibility to Job Opportunities for the Poor? The Case of Lima, Peru

10.20944/preprints201903.0150.v1 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Oviedo ◽

Lynn Scholl ◽

Marco Innao ◽

Lauramaria Pedraza

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Social Inequalities ◽

Public Transit ◽

Walking Distance ◽

Bus Rapid Transit ◽

Rapid Transit ◽

The Poor ◽

Before And After ◽

High Concentrations ◽

The City

Investments in public transit infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean often aim to reduce spatial and social inequalities by improving accessibility to jobs and other opportunities for vulnerable populations. The Metropolitano, Lima’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project had as one of its central goals to connect low-income populations living in the peripheries to jobs in the city center. We examine the contribution of Lima’s BRT system to accessibility to employment in the city, particularly for low-income public transit users. Building on secondary datasets of employment, household socio-demographics and Origin-Destination surveys before and after the BRT began operations, we assess its effects on potential accessibility to employment, comparing impacts amongst lower versus higher income populations. Findings suggest that the BRT line reduced travel times to reach jobs, in comparison with traditional public transport in the city, amongst populations living within walking distance of the system. However, we also find that the coverage of the BRT declines in areas with high concentrations of poor and extreme poor populations, limiting the equitability of the accessibility improvements. We analyze the distributional effects of BRT infrastructure and services, discussing policy avenues that can improve the prospects for BRT system investments to include the poor in their mobility benefits.

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Game Model of the Route Selection for Bus Rapid Transit

CICTP 2017 ◽

10.1061/9780784480915.420 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Hua-Wei Gong ◽

Wen-Zhou Jin ◽

Xiao-Dong Zang ◽

Qiang Luo

Keyword(s):

Bus Rapid Transit ◽

Game Model ◽

Route Selection ◽

Rapid Transit ◽

Selection For

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Modeling Interstation Travel Speed of Hybrid Bus Rapid Transit within A Bayesian Framework

智能城市应用 ◽

10.33142/sca.v2i5.817 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (5) ◽

Author(s):

Ji-hua Hu ◽

Jia-xian Liang

Keyword(s):

Road Traffic ◽

Travel Speed ◽

Bayesian Framework ◽

Bus Rapid Transit ◽

Rapid Transit ◽

Important Indicator ◽

Main Road ◽

Traffic Lights ◽

Speed Distribution ◽

Hybrid Bus

Interstation travel speed is an important indicator of the running state of hybrid Bus Rapid Transit and passenger experience. Due to the influence of road traffic, traffic lights and other factors, the interstation travel speeds are often some kind of multi-peak and it is difficult to use a single distribution to model them. In this paper, a Gaussian mixture model charactizing the interstation travel speed of hybrid BRT under a Bayesian framework is established. The parameters of the model are inferred using the Reversible-Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach (RJMCMC), including the number of model components and the weight, mean and variance of each component. Then the model is applied to Guangzhou BRT, a kind of hybrid BRT. From the results, it can be observed that the model can very effectively describe the heterogeneous speed data among different inter-stations, and provide richer information usually not available from the traditional models, and the model also produces an excellent fit to each multimodal speed distribution curve of the inter-stations. The causes of different speed distribution can be identified through investigating the Internet map of GBRT, they are big road traffic and long traffic lights respectively, which always contribute to a main road crossing. So, the BRT lane should be elevated through the main road to decrease the complexity of the running state.

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STRATEGI PENGEMBANGAN TRANSPORTASI MASSAL DI WILAYAH SUBURBAN MAKASSAR

Jurnal Transportasi Multimoda ◽

10.25104/mtm.v15i1.411 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 33

Author(s):

Ummu Kalsum ◽

M.Yamin Jinca

Keyword(s):

Bus Rapid Transit ◽

Rapid Transit ◽

Mapping Analysis

Fenomena suburbanisasi yang terjadi di kota Makassar mendorong terciptanya pusat-pusat aktivitas baru di kawasan pinggiran dan menimbulkan berbagai masalah baru, seperti masalah transportasi. Penelitian ini menjelaskan arah perkembangan kota di wilayah suburban, karakteristik pergerakan, kondisi pelayanan angkutan massal dan menemukan strategi pengembangan transportasi angkutan massal. Proses pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui observasi lapangan dan wawancara, kemudian dianalisis menggunakan mapping analysis, deskriptif kuantitatif, komparasi dan SWOT untuk menemukan strategi pengembangan. Hasil studi menunjukkan bahwa kota berkembang ke arah Timur dan Selatan serta tidak sesuai dengan hierarki jalan. Disamping itu masyarakat suburban dominan melakukan perjalanan 5 kali dalam seminggu dengan waktu tempuh berkisar 30 menit. Pelayanan angkutan massal menggunakan bus (Bus Rapid Transit) masih rendah karena halte masih sulit dijangkau meskipun biaya penggunaannya sangat terjangkau dan memberikan kenyamanan lebih dibanding angkutan massal lainnya. Oleh karena itu diperlukan strategi pengembangan konsep transportasi yang bersifat mikro dan adaptif untuk diterapkan.

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