1. Topic

2. Introduction

Public transport declined considerably in most cities over the past 40 years despite large scale investments. The ever-growing car use and its negative consequences are influencing the quality of life in urban areas. In order to reduce the use of the private car, local authorities need to make sure that qualitative alternatives are in place. The supply of high quality public transport is very important in this respect. A number of measures can help to improve the attractiveness of public transport.

The improvement of the quality and accessibility of public transport is also a priority area for the European Commission. It encourages authorities to introduce transparent contracts and to apply indicators in the definition of the services, such as frequency, punctuality, health, safety of passengers and better accessibility.

3. Discussion

As is stated by the Citizens’ Network Benchmarking Initiative “public authorities and transport operators across Europe are under pressure to provide more services with less money. At the same time, authorities and operators are expected to play a full part in supporting wider objectives such as environmental improvement and economic and social development” (2). This is by no means an easy undertaking. A number of measures improving the standards of service and organisation of public transport can improve its attractiveness and contribute to the increase of public transport use.

It is important that public transport services are reinforced because they can really make a difference:

Public transport is very efficient in terms of resources required: at an occupancy rate of only 50 % energy consumption per passenger km of bus and regional rail services is about 5 times lower than for private cars ((1), p. 4).

Public transport is also more sustainable in environmental terms: emissions of the main urban transport pollutants per passenger km are between 4 and 8 times less for public transport and use 5 times less energy per passenger than cars, as well as causing less noise and pollution ((1), p. 5).

Starting point should be that public transport is designed to meet people’s needs and is also flexible enough to respond to changing requirements. On the one hand, public transport should be attractive enough to reduce the dependence on the car; on the other hand, public transport should be able to extend the transport choices of those without access to a car.

4. Recommendation / Conclusion

Experience has shown that investment in public transport will not solve the problems unless combined with action to give public transport priority over private cars.

Moreover, action is required on levels of service, comfort, image and safety and genuine attention needs to be paid to improving the accessibility of public transport so that it can be used in safety and confidence by people with reduced personal mobility (disabled, elderly people and parents with children in pushchairs). In addition reserved lanes, links between networks and operating aid systems (e.g. based on telematic technologies) require improvements and these measures need to be integrated with those on car restraint in order to give full public transport priority (e.g. at traffic signals).

Accessibility is an issue for all public transport users, therefore factors such as location of stops and stations, frequency of lines and both physical and economical (affordability) accessibility determine the quality of the public transport service.

In order to achieve this, attention should be paid to a number of issues that influence the quality and attractiveness of public transport: ((1), p. 6).

System accessibility

• Needs of people with reduced mobility;
• Physical design of rolling stock;
• Design of stations including intermodality;
• Linking trip attracting areas to public transport and
• Linking rural and peripheral regions;

Affordability

• Fare levels;
• Socially desirable services (concession fares).

Safety / Security

• Safety standards;
• Quality of lighting;
• Qualification of staff;
• Number of staff on duty/surveillance system.

Travel convenience

• Journey times;
• Reliability;
• Frequency;
• Cleanness;
• Comfort;
• Adequate and dynamic information provision;
• Integrated ticketing;
• Flexibility.

Environmental impact

• Emissions;
• Noise;
• Infrastructure.

If you want public transport to be a valuable and competitive alternative to the car, requirements as the one mentioned above need to be met. Next to these aspects specifically related to the public transport system itself, integration with other modes and policy areas is also primordial ((1), p. 7):

• To increase the area and level of use of public transport, integration with other sustainable modes such as cycling and walking is a prerequisite. This can be encouraged through the construction of interconnecting transport infrastructure (multimodal terminal, park and ride facilities), the implementation of information and traffic management systems allowing for the reassessment of travel choices before and throughout the journey, the adaptation of vehicles so that bicycles can be transported on bus or train.
• Offer the combination of public transport and car sharing for those situations in which more flexibility is required for the traveller without the necessity of having his own car.
• The different sub-systems of public transport (bus, metro, tram, rail) should be coordinated in order to exploit their full potential. This can be done both in terms of hardware (terminals, multiple use of rail tracks) and software (integrated ticketing, integrated information systems) adaptations.
• Integrated urban land use and transport planning should favour public transport through priority measures such as bus lanes, special traffic lights, access restrictions to cars but not to public transport etc.
• Taxation systems should favour public transport, e.g. higher fuel taxes for cars, exemptions from inner-city tolls.

Within the overall transport policy it is important to develop a careful balance between pull and push measures.

In order to promote good local and regional transport the European Commission launched a wide scale project aimed at involving cities and regions from throughout the whole of Europe to compare and assess the performance of their local transport systems. By benchmarking (i.e. comparing) the performance of their own municipalities or regions with the performance of other municipalities or regions with good standards, they can find out in what areas they perform well and where they perform badly. Indicators were developed to do the benchmarking exercise. More info: http://www.eltis.org/benchmarking.

5. Examples / Further Reading

Grenoble (France)

A really effective example of good accessible public trasnport system is the light railway in Grenoble.

Nancy (France)

The city of Nancy has been running bimodal trolley buses since 1983 and estimates that their use has resulted in a 30% drop in energy consumption on the lines where these buses operate.

Bremen (Germany)

The experience with low-floor buses indicate an initial price up to 25% higher than the traditional buses, which is already decreased up to about +10% and is expected to reach only +2¸5%. On the opposite the operating costs can be reduced as a result of the improvement in the boarding time and hence overall in the running speed. The current evaluation in Bremen shows that the easier low-floor buses operation results in a reduction of 10% in the number of vehicles needed.

Freiburg (Germany)

Freiburg’s integrated traffic policy is widely regarded as exemplary in Europe and in 1992 the city was voted the german “federal capital for the protection of nature and the environment”. Its policy combines priority to public transport and cycling, pedestrian zones and traffic calming, park and ride facilities and reduction of parking inside the city. Since 1976 the car’s share of total daily journeys has fallen from 60% to 47%, while the share of public transport and cycling have risen correspondingly.

A particular successful innovation, implemented in other German cities too, was the low price monthly Eco ticket usable in the whole region on buses, trams and regional trains.

Karlsruhe (Germany)

Karlsruhe has implemented the “Stadtbahn” project for the use of train lines for urban trams.

Passengers benefit for the direct link, higher frequency, more stops and single fare structure.

The number of passenger per day arose from 2000 to 8000, which allow the involved companies to recoup their investments.

The project is part of a comprehensive transport plan, which includes also priority lanes for public transport.

Rotterdam (The Netherlands)

The “System Select” programme in Rotterdam introduced lanes reserved for public transport, goods vehicles and high occupancy vehicles on a number of roads giving access to port facilities as part of an overall package of measures to reduce congestion.

Madrid (Spain)

The use of public transport and car-pooling is promoted in Madrid through the construction of a High Occupancy Vehicle lane on a main motorway link.

Sweden

Service-route carries small buses and operates on a flexible timetable basis from residential areas to hospital, town centres, etc.

Example templates were provided by Leipzig, Gothenburg and Venice on: Enhancing Public Transport in Leipzig, The KIMO initiative and environmental water-borne public transport, Älvsnabben Ferry shuttle and The new Venice – Mestre tram.

Further Examples:

6. Additional Documents / Web Links

· European Commission Green Paper: The Citizens’ Network. Fulfilling the potential of public passenger transport in Europe, http://www.europa.eu.int/en/record/green/gp001en.pdf

· Citizens’ Network Benchmarking Initiative, http://www.eltis.org/benchmarking/

· European Commission White Paper: European Transport Policy for 2010: time to decide, http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/en/lb_en.html

· EU Project COST 322 – Low-floor buses

· UTOPIA Project – Deliverable 10: Evaluation of policy aspects – November 1999

Other examples in EU Projects:

· CENTAUR: Graz (Austria), Toulouse (France), Dublin (Ireland), Barcelona and Las Palmas (Spain) and Bristol (UK).

• ENTIRE: Helsinki (Finland), Venice (Italy) and Rotterdam (The Netherlands).
• JUPITER-2: Heidelberg (Germany), Florence (Italy), Bilbao (Spain) and Merseyside (UK). NGVeurope: Colmar and Poitiers (France), Augsburg (Germany), Dublin (Ireland) and Rome (Italy)
• SAGITTAIRE: Bruges and Leuven (Belgium), Besancon (France), Savona and Trento (Italy), Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Stavanger (Norway) and Sintra (Portugal).

• ZEUS: Copenhagen (Denmark), Helsinki (Finland), Bremen (Germany), Athens (Greece), Palermo (Italy), Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Stockholm (Sweden), Coventry and London (UK).

Last Updated

25th January 2005