1 josé m viegas - promoting efficiency and equity in urban mobility, cistup- i i s – 7 jan. 2011...

1José M Viegas - Promoting Efficiency and Equity in Urban Mobility, CiSTUP- I I S – 7 Jan. 2011

Promoting Efficiency and Equity in Urban Mobility

José Manuel Viegas

Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal

[email protected]

CiSTUP Foundation Day Annual Lecture

CiSTUP – Center for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore – January 7th , 2011


Problem setting (I)

In Urban Mobility... Efficiency is most mentioned objective, but is not the only one

Sustainability (gaining weight recently) Equity

Three main approaches are used to promote efficiency, mostly separately

Technology Prices (incl. Taxes and Subsidies) Regulation and Legislation

Concentration on just the efficiency objective, through only one approach is a strong value reduction


Problem setting (II) Revise the objectives and the instruments

Combining efficiency and equity translates into enjoying good quality of mobility in all modes This implies controlling the quantity of cars

Plus, making sure that there is a fair distribution of common resources and nobody misses the right to mobility for economic reasons

Mobility is an essential right as it provides access to other rights

Sustainability can be translated into “efficiency & equity” in a long-term perspective Also here, using only one approach (technology) strongly reduces

value


Key Principles

No Transport mode has moral superiority over the others Priority to the citizen and the city, not to specific modes by default

Vehicle occupancy (load factor) is at least as important as vehicle technology to achieve high efficiency in terms of space, energy, and emissions And reduce costs, so allowing more affordable prices

Adopt Multi-Instrumentality approach Technology + Prices + Regulation Smaller doses of each “pill”, less secondary effects, easier acceptance


Main Topics

Getting the best use of road space for transit and for general traffic Technology with a touch on regulation

Filling the gap between transit and the Private car Regulation and Prices with a touch on technology

Constrain car use in the city or the abuse of the city by the car? Prices with a touch on regulation and technology


Getting the best use of road space for transit

and for general traffic


The Intermittent Bus Lane (IBL) and the best use of road space

• Bus Lanes in road sections where bus frequency is low (less than 20/h) are inefficient use of road space;

• But, if those road sections are congested those (few) buses will suffer delays

• IBL consists of a lane that can change its status from regular lane (accessible for all vehicles) to bus lane, for the time strictly necessary for a bus to pass;


The Intermittent Bus Lane (IBL) signaling

The status of the IBL is communicated to drivers using a system of both vertical and horizontal variable message signalization devices: vertical variable message signs and a linear set of LED’s installed on the road pavement.

When these devices are activated: The signalized lane will

operate as bus lane; and General traffic is not

allowed to enter that lane (vehicles that are inside the lane should drive on in that lane).


Operation of IBL

A1. Loop Detectors measure traffic attributes (flow, speed and queue length)

A2. Regular update of bus location, computing estimated time of bus entry into IBL section

Step 1 – Keeping watch on Traffic and Bus

Step 2 – IBL Activation

C1. LED activation (IBL still with general traffic inside).

Step 2 – IBL Activation

C2. Queue moves on – Space for bus opens up

B. Motion of Bus and of traffic queue tail allow computation of advance notice requirement.


Operation of IBL

C3. IBL clean – space for bus movement

Step 2 – IBL Activation Step 3 – IBL De-activation

D1. Bus detected at IBL section exit

D2. IBL re-opens for general traffic


Demonstration Results: Sept 05 – March 06

Hourly variation of the Average Traveling Times of buses during the IBL demonstration (1st quarter w/ only short range bus location; 2nd quarter w/ long and short range bus location) and in the Reference Scenario - Peak hour travel time reductions of 55% in average of the 4 lines passing in this section

0:00:000:01:000:02:000:03:000:04:000:05:000:06:000:07:000:08:000:09:000:10:000:11:000:12:00

6:00

7:00

8:00

9:00

10:0

0

11:0

0

12:0

0

13:0

0

14:0

0

15:0

0

16:0

0

17:0

0

18:0

0

19:0

0

20:0

0

21:0

0

Ref Carris - Mean

1st Quarter

2nd Quarter

Bus Circulation times - stretch of length 1.0 km including one bus stop before and one bus stop within active IBL section


Demonstration: Movie without / with IBL in operation (51 sec)


Filling the gap

between Transit and the Private car


From efficient vehicles to efficient mobility

Even with totally clean vehicles, major congestion levels and associated problems remain

We must act not only on vehicles and on their paths, but also on Load Factors (pax / vehicle), Modal Choices and on Mobility Patterns of people and freight

More difficult, as this requires behavioral adaptations

Similar type of problems exist for freight (not covered here)


Could better Transit be THE answer?

Transit can and should have strong improvements of quality of service through technology Priority in traffic Punctuality Approach alerts

But many mobility requisites outside reach with good quality dispersion of O/D pairs in single trips complexity of daily mobility chains (in geography and in time)


Variable Agenda, Modal Alternation

For many people in urban areas, daily agendas are not uniform across the week Transport solutions should follow: some days by car, some days by

transit, maybe some days cycling & walking But transit fare schemes assume otherwise big price penalty from

monthly to weekly to day passo You feel “cheated” if you don’t use it everyday

Driving your car is most flexible solution ! Those who cannot afford driving everyday are “pushed” into simpler

lifestyles, with lower diversity

And the solution is so easy: a rechargeable card with n day passes, not necessarily consecutive (pay only when you ride) Discounts according to quantity you charge


Filling the Gap

Searching for the double second-best Almost as social-efficient as public transport Almost as consumer-efficient as individual transport

Thus reducing resistance to change

Intermediate modes and services Enriching the choice set, to be used in a “modal alternation” setting A closer fit to everybody’s mobility requirements Contributing to a much more efficient overall result

Main intermediate modes analyzed in our research Shared Taxi (covered here) Express Minibus, Car-pooling clubs, Car-sharing (not covered)


The Shared Taxi concept (I)

Taxis are a very convenient mode, door to door, as fast (or faster) than your private car, no parking issues

But very expensive for some people

And some times very hard to get one

And most often traveling with only one pax...

Could we make it more efficient without losing convenience?


The Shared Taxi concept (II)

Basic features of shared taxi concept Call by phone, stating start and end of trip

Computerized dispatch will locate one taxi with available place for whom serving you is small detour

Passengers must check-in & check-out, cashless payment for speed

For each additional pax on board, each pax pays less, but operator gets more – payments by distance, adjusted to pax on board

Main problems: Some resistance to traveling with strangers in small group driver

role as warden to be enhanced Passenger entry / exit not LIFO vehicles with higher cabin make

this easier (see London Cabs and SUVs)


Basis for assigning a Shared Taxi to a Passenger

Expected travel time (Ett)Expected travel distance (Etd)

Taxi travel time (Ttt)Taxi travel distance (Ttd)

Pax. waiting time for this taxi (Twt)

Maximum de-route time (Mdt)Maximum de-route distance (Mdd)

Passenger requesting a taxi

Candidate taxis

PT


Assigning Shared Taxis to passengers – Estimating detours

Taxi selection procedure

1

21

P

P1

2

P

P1P

P

2 Passengers on-board:

1 Passenger on-board:

No passengers on-board:

Taxi

Taxi

Taxi

P

P

Origin of passenger being considered

Destination of passenger being considered


Shared Taxis – simulation for Lisbon Agent-based simulation program for whole taxi fleet and normal taxi

demand (10 % of taxis sharable)

6% of taxi clients rode in a shared taxi (currently taxi supply is ample) Iterative loops underway for consideration of demand elasticity to price reduction

(positive feedback) attracting some current solo drivers Should also produce some relief in congestion and in parking pressure


A new model development needed to estimate use of intermediate modes (I)

With normal OD matrix estimation, each surveyed person generates many precisely equal trip chains (as many as the inverse of the sampling rate) Impossible to look for matches with fine resolution A new model to

estimate the universe of trips, based on the survey sample

Objective: Make estimation using minimum of behavioral assumptions

Use a fuzzy logic based reproducer of each surveyed person, Preserving the array of trip purposes stated in the survey

Introducing (small) variations in time and in space distance of each trip, keeping all the other attributes of that trip, namely trip purpose and mode used for each trip

Space resolution (zone) is the city block


A new model development needed to estimate use of intermediate modes (II)

Each replication of the surveyed person is obtained by random number generation, around the values in the survey

Origin of first trip is estimated with a membership function decaying with distance from the origin stated in the survey, weighted by the intensity of residential area in each block.

Destination of each trip is estimated with a membership function decaying with difference from the stated travel time from the estimated origin, using the same transport mode, weighted by the land use intensity of the nature associated with the trip purpose in each block


A new model development needed to estimate use of intermediate modes (III)

After generation of all trips in the mobility chain, total travel time is checked against total travel time stated in the survey and this “avatar” accepted / rejected based on another membership function

Calibration of the membership functions based on average total travel times by type of mobility chain

% of intra-zonal trips (using with the traditional zones)

Variance of traffic levels on local streets vs. real traffic data from sensors (each simulation run should “reproduce” one day in the life of the city) – still underway

Much more realistic results, many fewer zero cells in matrix, makes possible analysis of traffic conditions and travel choices with much finer resolution


Tariff Integration extended to Intermediate Modes (I)

Tariff integration in transit is common in many cities

Promotes the notion of “package deal”, allows passenger to search for best combination

Intermediate Modes should not be seen in isolation, but rather in combination and alternation

They can often be used in terminal parts of trips (e.g. between home and suburban rail)

But they should be market initiated, non-subsidized, thus at a higher price than regular (subsidized) transit


Tariff Integration extended to Intermediate Modes (II)

Include intermediate modes in the integrated transit tariff scheme

In multi-stage trips, Pax uses transit card and pays only the upgrade (difference to what transit would charge for the same run)

Intermediate Mode operator participates in sharing of transit card revenues

Accepting integration in tariff scheme and information system could be set as condition for permission to operate


Constrain car use in the city or

the abuse of the city by the car?


Urban Access Charges with Equity concerns

We should not be penalizing the use of the car in the city, but rather the abuse of the city by the car

Why not give every local citizen a “mobility ration” that could be used for access by car to the city ? Similar to a free parking place in your street

Number of impulses per km variable with saturation level of network in used area

Similar to odd / even plate number restrictions, but giving citizens the choice of

When to use free ration

Whether to pay for more and get access


Mobility Impulses

Price paid by impulse

Urban Access Charges with Equity concerns

Allow everyone some basic car mobility without paying for access

Consumption above the ration possible but at a price, possibly aggravated in stepwise function, to discourage intensive use

More likely modal shift and overall efficiency gain in conjuntion with modal alternation and itermediate modes

Calibrate car access price vs. Upgrade prices for intermediate modes

If free ration is very large, prices above that limit must be higher to keep total demand under control

Trading possible, some redistribution effect


Applicability in India ?

These issues are especially serious in Indian cities Efficiency in fighting congestion, given the high urban population

volumes and densities, with a richer variety of transport modes sharing the same space And still with a relatively low level of car ownership

Equity in ensuring everybody the right to mobility, an essential right as it provides access to several other rights (health, education, work, leisure) And still with a relatively large proportion of urban poor

But with the advantage of being less locked-in with the solutions of richer countries This lecture proves that tackling both objectives is possible, with these

and or other instruments Each society should decide which mix of tools to use, but You still have

more degrees of freedom


Thank you for your attention !

1 josé m viegas - promoting efficiency and equity in urban mobility, cistup- i i s – 7 jan. 2011...

Documents