Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 93

ATC.

10.4       Road Space Reallocation – Bus Priority

10.4.1. Bus priority is an effective measure to meet traffic strategy objectives - it favours people and not vehicles and enables roads to be used efficiently.  Reallocation of road space from cars to buses forms part of the traffic strategy of most developed cities.  The extent to which reallocation is pursued varies but, there is an increasing trend for positive, preferential reallocation such that buses can be freed from the effects of traffic congestion at all times of the day and over their complete route itinerary.  Due to road

width constraints, it is not always possible to provide physical measures (bus lanes and/or busways) and other management measures such as traffic metering-traffic queue relocation with bus lane “by-passes” are now used.

10.5       Packaging of Measures

10.5.1. Chapter 3 states that traffic management is most effective if applied on a comprehensive basis in corridors or city areas.  Two UK traffic management based initiatives are interesting in that they have implemented the “package” approach in a major city; for example:

a)  “quality partnerships” have been developed with the objective of improving the complete bus service along a route.  A “quality partnership” is an agreement reached between the equivalent of the traffic management agency, the bus operator and local municipalities to improve all aspects of bus-based journeys along a route – to improve the “quality” of service.  Measures include traffic management measures to assist buses (bus priority, junction improvements, signals systems etc), off-bus improvements (bus stops, shelters, pedestrian access to/from bus services etc) and bus improvements (better buses, passenger information, etc).  Each agency contributes to the cost of the package which is marketed to the public as an integrated scheme;

b)  “Red Routes”- in 1991, a Traffic Director for London was appointed to develop traffic management measures over a network of 500 kms (315 miles) of the more important roads in London with a view to reducing congestion. The network was termed the “Red Route” network because of the purpose designed kerbside redcoloured “no–stopping” markings and red–bordered signs  While the objectives of the network can be debated – in the first instance, bus priority was not allowed to affect unduly traffic capacity and cars benefited although this has now changed – the initiative is interesting particularly from the institutional standpoint.  In effect, the responsibility for comprehensive traffic management treatment of main roads throughout the city was given into the responsibility of one office.  The office contracted all design work to local authorities which in many cases used consultants. The single responsibility and the concentration on the most important and heavily trafficked roads has been effective; the measures were largely designed and implemented by 2000.

10.6       Development Gain

10.6.1. Large scale city development (shopping centres, large office complexes etc) rely on good road based (car, bus, pedestrian) access but they also create high travel demand. A trend has emerged to seek contributions from developers for the improvement of the transport system and to “compensate” for the impact of large scale development.  In some cases developers have financed public transport services but typically, developers contribute to the traffic management costs of improving access roads, junctions or other traffic measures.

10.7       Road Pricing

10.7.1. Generally, over the last few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in congestion

pricing although little new implementation.  To some extent, the renewed interest has been stimulated by the potential of automatic electronic charging and enforcement systems.  Singapore electronic road pricing (ERP) was implemented in 1998 and other cities have more limited electronic pricing mechanisms such as electronic toll collection (mainly on toll roads and barrier crossings (bridges etc) but also in the urban context such as the Trondheim cordon scheme).  There are various forms of electronic pricing (for example, all vehicles in Singapore have an in-vehicle unit supplied by government) and not all would be feasible for developing cities and Hau (see Chapter 9) suggested in 1996 that “paper based”, manual systems would be more appropriate.  This may still be the case for a large number of cities particularly as electronic-automatic charging systems (i) rely on access to complete and national vehicle licence-ownership records and (ii) should be operational at all times (unlike say ATC which has built in fall backs in the case of failure).  However, technology is developing rapidly, real costs are reducing and following experience of implementation in cities other than Singapore, ERP is likely to become the norm.