Thanks to everyone for providing feedback on the Bus Meister game via e-mail, comments and at the TRB meeting!
One funny question was, "Why are the buses traveling on the left (curb) lane?"
The answer is that we wanted the buses to travel left to right and also wanted to show the buildings in the background ... so the buses need to travel "British style". Maybe we should make them double decker?
Our next steps are to revise the factors to make the game work better (i.e. show the benefits of PT priority more clearly), then we will make Bus Meister a real game with levels (top level is "Bus Meister" of course!). When we launch this version of the game it will be on facebook and have a more interactive website so that players can use social networking to get involved in improving public transport in their own communities. ... Lots to do, but quite exciting.
Here's a film from current TV on Cali Columbia's new bus rapid transit system which is called MIO. It's a nice film illustrating many of the benefits of BRT. At one point a user complains that she likes the older minibuses better - because the new system is too crowded! Not sure if that's really a negative ... a few more buses might solve the problem.
For a slightly less serious look at South American BRT systems check out my music video parody: The Bus From Curitiba on YouTube.
Bus Meister will help citizens lobby city hall (this is Vienna) in support of public transport priority (from my flickr photos).
I just returned from a meeting in Udine (Italy) where I spoke about my Bus Meister idea of creating an integrated suite of web applications (game, social network and wiki best practices library) to help educate citizens on how to improve public transport operations (by introducing public transport priority measures) and to empower them to help actually implement these ideas. It's a general approach that I think could be used to solve many urban problems.
Going through my e-mail I was glad to read about Barcelona's new BRT lines which one of my UC Berkeley professors, Carlos Daganzo, is helping plan. The article in the ITS Berkeley News is a very good summary of for the importance of public transport priority and BRT. Daganzo is a brilliant scientist, it's great to see him working on improving public transport!
My latest music video: "The Bus from Curitiba" probably needs some explanation, so here's a little bit about bus rapid transit and then the words with a couple comments.
Bus Rapid Transit and Public Transit Priority
Curitiba Brazil is famous for pioneering the development of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). In the 1970s the city decided to build a very efficient bus-based public transport network instead of a relatively short section of metro line (which would have cost the same amount of money). The results have been nothing short of fantastic.
Curitiba's BRT system has been replicated throughout the world, although not to the extent that it deserves. Many cities are seduced by the thought of rail-based public transport preferring the sexiness of rail over the benefits of creating a more comprehensive public transport network.
Rail-based public transport is critical in large cities where there is sufficient demand, but I think it's better to build an attractive and efficient public transport network - based on buses - and then replace buses with higher capacity rail lines when necessary rather then building 'starter rail lines' and hoping to attract riders. It's the network that enables people to get 'from everywhere to everywhere' thus addressing the oft heard complaint that "I can't get there with public transport."
For more information on Curitiba see: the great Streetfilms Curitiba video showing the system in operation and describing how it works; Professor Robert Cervero's excellent book The Transit Metropolis (which also describes many other interesting examples of public transport throughout the world); and the wikipedia article Rede Integrada de Transporte.
BRT can be defined as the systematic application of public transport priority techniques. Zurich is a great example of another approach towards systematically applying public transport priority techniques; rather than building any large project Zurich incrementally added improvements that speed-up bus and tram service over the last thirty years thus creating a fast and efficient surface public transport system. You can read more about Zurich in Professor Cervero's book and in some of my publications and on my website improving public transport efficiency.
The Bus from Curitiba - Words and Comments
I visited Curitiba to ride the buses in 1997. The city was extremely pleasant and enjoyable. In addition to the buses I remember a fantastic passion fruit smoothie. Here are the words:
Fast and fun and clean and quickly, The bus from Curitiba comes cruising, And when she comes the people all say ahh ... When she moves she's like a Samba that Rides so smooth and sways so gentle That when she passes each one she passes says ahh ... Oh I would ride her so gladly, If transport planning wern't done so badly, Yes, I would ride her so gladly, But each bus that we put in a plan, Just gets replaced by a tram, Fast and fun and clean and quickly, The bus from Curitiba comes crusing And when she passes I smile But we don't BRT Not in our city, No we just don't BRT.
OK, I am not being totally fair. Planning isn't always done badly, but as I outline above, I think too often we ignore the bus option (of course capital and operating funding programs also enter into the picture, but that's for another song). And, of course, trams make sense in larger cities with strong demand, but gladly and badly is a pretty good rhyme don't you think?
Here's a great video interview of Bill Mitchell, the Smart Cities Director at MIT's Media Lab. They are developing ideas like the cars in the photo above, rethinking the entire concept of cars from technology to the transport systems in which they operate.
I was especially interested in his description of the 'future of mobility' where he talks about the need for sophisticated management algorithms helping to make more efficient use of existing resources (11:15 into the interview). This is exactly the idea behind the Bus Meister concept for using Web 2.0 applications to help provide priority for public transport.
Daniel Sparing, a colleague from Hungary, just posted the photo above on his flickr site. It's a good picture of a public transport priority measure. He calls it a bus trap but says in the comment "or to be more precise, a car trap. Buses can pass through." He's got lots of great bicycling photos on his site too.
One of my favorite California planners, Bill Fulton, has a wonderful article about learning from Portland Oregon's success in creating an exciting urban area. Like most planners I have always been a huge fan of Portland and its great transport system. Bill's article identifies six lessons from Portland, but rather than encouraging other cities to simply copy these lessons - which many "lessons from Portland" articles seem to do, he suggests that cities try to understand what Portland has done and develop their own strategies for success. Here's a link to Bill Fultons's article What We Can REALLY Learn From Portland.
Well, unfortunately my entry in the ITS Congestion Challenge, Bus Meister, was not one of the nine finalists chosen for the competition. I think that the finalists are generally very good, although most are not truly innovative ideas, many have been talked about for years. But perhaps that's the point of this particular competition, developing products that actually implement some of these good ideas.
You can view the solutions and vote for your favorite (I think you need to register to vote and comment). Here's my run down of the finalists (I have also embedded my two favorite videos):
Avego - An internet based system that simplifies carpooling. Well done. Their video is an excellent description of how the system would work.
BroadBit - A system that uses video monitoring on freeways to reduce lane-changing maneuvers and allows drivers to use the hard shoulders for driving. The system's goal of making traffic flow more linear is good, but it will be a tough to implement a system that involves sending people traffic tickets for changing lanes too frequently on freeways. Also, the developers need to discuss their ideas more with freeway traffic flow experts. For example, why not add real-time speed limits set to maximize flow? And, how will on-ramps be handled? Then of course there is the question of induced traffic. Finally, I think there would be a great deal of resistance towards implementing this kind of system; why not simply use pricing to control traffic volume (see Skymeter below).
FuelClinic.com - A system designed to encourage people to drive in a more eco-conscious way (to help save fuel). I am not really sure what this has to do with congestion, but it's a nice idea.
GCDC - Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge - This is a competition for cooperative driving technologies. Cooperative driving includes receiving information from infrastructure (R2V) and other vehicles (V2V) that helps you determine how to drive (e.g. if you drive 30mph you will reach the traffic signal at the right time). There's lots of research going on in this field by the automobile companies and others right now.
iCarpool - Similar to Avego, this is a system for increasing carpooling. I liked Avego's proposal better, especially the Avego video since it fully described the system. iCarpool's proposal was a bit unclear.
iCone - This is a very cool application for state highway departments. It consists of independent traffic monitoring devices in those orange construction site cones. They can monitor traffic in construction zones and on evacuation routes etc. It's a nice product, although it's not really a solution for ongoing congestion. The iCone video provides a good description.
Intellione.com - This system uses cell phone data to monitor traffic flows. Again, lots of research is being done on this subject. This proposal did not seem to be anything special.
Precyse Tech. - This uses RFID tags to create smart agent networks. The idea is that the RFID tags are better than cell phone data or GPS. The exact function for reducing congestion was not described in the reference website (which discusses tracking freight shipments). Again, lots of on-going research in this area.
Skymeter Corp. - This is a "financial" GPS. I think this means it is a geographic positioning system that it is accurate enough for use in financial transactions. First I thought Ho-Hum. Then I watched the excellent Skymaster video. Their point is that the only way to really address congestion is through road pricing. The Skymaster technology enables government to adopt more precise and effective ways to charge for driving. As the video says, that's part 1. Part 2 is having governments actually implement a road pricing scheme. Of course for those of us following the debate, the technology is about 10% of the problem, getting governments to adopt these systems is about 90% - at least Skymaster recognizes this and is up front about it.
The Skymeter Corp. proposal struck a chord with me because I believe in road pricing, but also because they clearly recognize that technology is not really useful without social/institutional change needed to get good ideas implemented. That's what I like about Bus Meister ... it combines technology with user involvement to create an environment for actually implementing real transportation improvements.
I found the Vencorps process to be quite good in the sense that I received some feedback from other users that has helped me refine my proposal. However there were so many solutions submitted for the ITS Challenge that it was hard to review them all and make helpful comments. It will be interesting to see how the competition ends.
As for Bus Meister, it's probably a bit ahead of its time, but I have written a Transportation Research Board paper for the 2010 Annual Meeting that discusses the idea in the context of Web 2.0 technology for public involvement in the transport planning process and I am continuing to look for funding. Plus ... filming for the music video is underway!
I've been interested in public transport priority for many years. The key problem with public transport priority, it seems to me, is that the projects needed to help make public transport more efficient aren't very sexy. It's all about the little things not the huge new light rail systems or metro projects. So, how to you make public transport priority more exciting?
How about developing an on-line game that people can use to model their own public transport line and linking that to a social networking system that brings people together to lobby effectively for implementation of the best ideas? That's the main idea behind the Bus Meister proposal I am working on.
There's already a game called Gridlock Busters about traffic congestion and social networking sites like see fix click designed to help generate "pressure" for improving urban infrastructure, why not combine the ideas and do something to improve public transport?
I submitted the idea to the ITS Transport Congestion Challenge - a competition where people vote on-line for the best solutions for traffic congestion. I would appreciate your comments and vote! Here's a link to Bus Meister on my website, it presents the whole proposal and gives instructions on how to vote.
Thanks, and please let me know what you think - I plan to continue working on the proposal!
Finally a new music video. Just before heading out to dinner with friends in Zurich I heard Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz song. All I can say is that it was inspiring ... and I am not the only one, there's lots of versions on YouTube.
We went to dinner at a great little neighborhood restaurant with big windows on one of Zurich's public transport priority streets. All night long trams passed by until finally it clicked ...
Cobra trams are Zurich's new low floor streetcar. They were a bit undependable when they first arrived although seem to be doing well now. They are quite elegant: big windows, lots of room around the doors to move in and out, nice seats, clean lines and quiet. Their wheels are independent (in other words there is not a common axle between wheels on either side of the streetcar) which make them very quiet.
Unfortunately as the public transport vehicle manufacturing industry has consolidated over the last few years the major manufacturers have discontinued the "cobra" design, so Zurich's are unique. Here's a press release by the manufacturer Bombardier describing the cobra trams (PDF).
On Tuesday afternoon, following the VREF's Future of Urban Transport conference we took a hybrid bus to the Volvo Museum and had a presentation on Volvo's approach to bus rapid transit and hybrid bus technology. BRT and public transport priority in general are one of my main interests, so it was nice to learn more about Volvo's work in this area. The main message for me was that transit priority is important for reducing greenhouse gases since there is only so much that vehicle technology can do by itself.
The Volvo Museum was fascinating. It describes the company history and there are cars, trucks and buses from every decade, including "concept" vehicles. Photo shows me 'driving' one of the historic buses (they would not let me drive the hybrid!). Very interesting is that Nash Motors from the USA almost bought Volvo in the 1930s, but at the last minute Volvo's founders were able to get additional funding to keep the company. Given my name that was an interesting personal connection!
On Monday, we started with presentations from very high level business leaders at AB Volvo, Bombardier Transportation, Volvo Car Corporation and the Swedish Petroleum Institute. They described what their companies were doing in the areas of future urban transport. Next we heard from the Mayor of Goteborg, the Deputy Mayor of Changsha (China) and Kulveer Ranger (Director of Transport Policy for the Greater London Authority). They described how their cities were addressing the issue of sustainable transport and urban planning. The final session discussed 'service' business ideas: urban freight management, Veolia Transport (a major operator of public transport services) and a property developer from Stockholm who described how they redeveloped an old industrial area.
All the presentations were interesting, although I think that the discussion would have been better if the groups were mixed rather than in the "silo" based format. For example it would have been interesting to have the Bombardier's president discuss where and when rail investment is warranted with a policy maker from a developing country in Asia or Africa. Or having the Volvo Cars president discuss with London's transport policy director how to make electric cars a reality (London believes electric car technology is ready for deployment now, it would have been interesting to hear the auto industry's view on that).
On the other hand, the conference was small enough so that we could discuss many of these issues on a one-to-one basis. In fact, I discussed Shai Agassi's very interesting Better Place proposal for deploying electric cars NOW with London's Mr Ranger the evening before over a beer.
We started Tuesday with two videos of James Bond in Bremen. Then four focused discussions of specific research projects sponsored by the VREF. Professor Lisa Schweitzer (University of Southern California) talked about the need to proactively work on development around rail stations in disadvantaged areas. Professor Yves Crozet (University of Lyon) described how to improve accessibility for disadvantaged areas by focusing on slower modes of transport based on a case study of Lyon's BRT line (the case study used a very cool GIS analysis).
Next we heard from Professor Anthony May (University of Leeds) on the results of a quick analysis of transport financing in France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan. What was most surprising was the lack of detailed research in the area of comparing these systems and the high degree of variation. (This would be an excellent subject for my WIKI-based transport knowledge management system, more later.) Finally, Professor Elizabeth Deakin (UC Berkeley), another of my favorite UCB professors, talked about the US transport funding situation. Both presentations included several excellent recommendations for improving the funding process.
In the afternoon a small group of us visited the Volvo Museum and learned a bit more about the Volvo buses. More tomorrow.
I just returned from the 4th Future Urban Transport Conference held in Göteborg. The conference is sponsored by the City of Göteborg, the Volvo Research and Education Foundations and the Volvo company. (The photo above is of the design on the sides of Göteborg's public transport vehicles - they have a great PT system including a new bus rapid transit line.)
The conference was excellent, blending academic research with public policy and business issues. The first day consisted of presentations from academic researchers. Many were from programs sponsored by the VREF and there was a real diversity of ideas and opinions expressed. The conference website shows the schedule with links to the presentations.
One of the most interesting presentations for me was the keynote by Professor Geetam Tiwari who discussed some of the research done at her institute in New Delhi. Her presentation Public Transport Use - Emerging Issues really made you think about some preconceived ideas about public transport (is a new metro the right solution for cities like Delhi? is public transport really safer than alternatives? what are the real equity issues in transport?).
I also really enjoyed Professor Carlos Daganzo's presentation on A Cheap and Resilient Approach to Eliminating Bus Bunching. Professor Daganzo was one of my teachers at Berkeley and he always amazed me by being able to translate very complex mathematical analysis into practical ideas, and even better, to make them easily understandable. As a public transport rider I feel like I am affected by bus bunching every day and so I hope to work with Vienna Transport to test Carlos' idea on my local bus line. I'll keep you updated.
The third presentation that made a big impact on me was by Professor Harry Dimitriou: Mega transport Projects, Globalization and Private Finance: Emerging Challenges for the 21st Century. The topics he raised are especially topical since many policy makers have been operating under the assumption that private finance (e.g. public private partnerships etc.) are the answer to solving our transport infrastructure problems ... but the private finance model seems to have let us down in the last several years, what does this mean? Among the interesting points he made is that the private sector is not necessarily more efficient than the public sector, that finance companies and government can have very different objectives for their assets (financiers may want to churn the asset to generate short term profits, government wants an efficient and sustainable infrastructure solution), etc. Fascinating ideas extremely relevant for today's problems.
I could go on since there were many other interesting papers and discussions. Tomorrow more on the second two days of the conference.
On our recent trip to Zürich we rode the Glattalbahn (German) from Zurich Airport into the center of Zürich. The Glattalbahn is a new rail line that combines aspects of a tram (streetcar, light rail transit) line with regional rail. It operates on the city streets in Zürich and then on its own right of way outside the city.
The Glattalbahn was very carefully planned and has lots of interesting features that you can see in this film including very well designed stations, sensitivity to the environment (tracks laid on grass, lines of trees), including the whole street in the improvement project and connectivity to other public transport. I hope the film does justice to some of these, sorry about the rain!
