A comparative assessment for innovative public transport technologies

Abstract

Increasing urbanization around the world has raised the passenger demand for public transport. Although travelling by private vehicles dominates market share in most cities and car ownership has increased dramatically, public transport is still an important and cost-effective option, especially in large cities. As a result of that, many public transport technologies, including conventional bus services and innovative public transport technologies, are available to meet this demand.

Due to the land use and financial constraints of public transport development in large cities, transport planners and decision makers need to think twice before choosing the most cost-effective public transport mode for the local transport network. Therefore it is necessary to have a comprehensive assessment to evaluate the performance of different public transport technologies, both from the operator’s and society’s point of view.

This thesis demonstrates the development of the comparative assessment for comparing the performance of various public transport technologies based on their characteristics and the condition of local transport network. The comparative assessment is made up of three models: Spreadsheet Cost Model, Demand Supply Model and Microscopic Simulation Model. The Spreadsheet Cost Model is constructed in Microsoft Excel and calculates the social and operator cost of public transport systems in strategy level. The Demand Supply Model evaluates the relationship between services supplied from the operator and the passenger demand level by using the demand elasticity with respect to generalised passenger journey time. The Microscopic Simulation Model determines the level of service of the public transport system on the local network by using a microscopic simulation model in VISSIM, which has been created, calibrated and validated based on the data collected from the main corridor of Nanning, China. The three models were integrated in the comparative assessment which is then able to quantify the performance differences between public transport technologies operating on local transport network.

The comparative assessment was applied to compare the existing conventional bus service with a conceptually innovative public transport technology, Straddle Bus, on the main corridor (Minzu Avenue) in Nanning, China, in terms of social and operator cost, level of service and forecasted endogenous passenger demand level. The result shows that implementation of Straddle bus in Nanning is able to meet the public transport passenger demand that is increasing rapidly in the city. Detailed interpretations of the comparative assessment results have been given, as well as the suggestions for transport planners and decision makers in Nanning city, as an example of the usefulness of the comparative assessment.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Jonathan Preston: orcid.org/0000-0002-6866-049X

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