Showing posts with label Public Transport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Public Transport. Show all posts
Innovations in Urban Public Transportation
Numerous proposals have been put forward for new approaches to public transportation. These range from entirely new systems to large or small changes in existing ones.
Possibly the most imaginative proposal is for an underground system which combines gravity and vacuums for propulsion.8' Another all-new system is called “personalized rapid transit” (PRT) or “rental personalized auto mobile service" (PAS). It would employ small cars for individual movements in urban areas.
These might travel on guide ways and provide station-to-station service. In a dense down town, several adjacent loops could cover the entire area. Another extension of the concept would be dual-mode: cars would travel on a guide way on the portion of their routes common to many other vehicles but run on the streets under their own power on the low-volume portion of their travel, such as from terminal to home. Even yet another approach is to store vehicles at closely spaced convenient locations ready for authorized drivers to use. They would drive over the streets and leave the vehicles at stations near their destinations.
An arrangement to shuttle unused vehicles to points where high demand is predicted would be necessary. As with all entirely new schemes, these would require a substantial initial investment and a long phase-in period.8-1 None have been implemented.
Innovations are also possible in other dual-mode schemes. For example, pallet approaches, such as are provided for auto mobiles on certain rail roads, would have special heavy-rail cars travelling the main arteries carrying the small cars used at the origin and destination ends.
A modest variant sometimes now employed has storage for bicycles on trains or buses, so that they are available at both ends of trips.83
A less elaborate and cheaper system involves slow-moving passenger vehicles that follow a buried cable along a fixed route. They would share walkways with pedestrians or streets with slow-moving vehicles. Numerous similar installations for transporting materials in factories have already been made.
PRESENT AND PROPOSED USES OF AND FACILITIES FOR URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION - PART 1
Although,
as noted earlier, public transportation presently is in financial distress, it
serves functions that must be maintained. Much urban movement, par- an
automobile that is driven alone or in a car or van pool. Advantages can include
lower costs and relief from the frustrations and strains of driving or riding
in heavy traffic. But the controlled timetable and fixed routes of buses, or
waits or uncertain length with demand-responsive systems, do not offer the
freedoms provided by the automobile or van. Commonly, the origin to destination
time by bus is longer. Also, as noted, buses may be crowded and uncomfortable
and offer no privacy, although with air conditioning and in some cases
subscription service (reserved seats for a premium fare), some of these
difficulties have been overcome.
Bus
operations are not capital intensive; rather, seven-eighths of the annual
outlays can be classed as operating expenses. This is in marked contrast to
rail where capital investments are high but, once in, require less labor. Of
course automobiles, being privately owned, require no public investment except
for highways engineering.
BUS
SELECTION. Almost all buses, excepting some minibuses, are powered by
fuel-efficient, time-proved diesel engines. Features vary: no one size or body
conformation is best adapted to all applications, so that many styles exist in
the more than 50.000 in use in public transit in the United States.
“Standard”
bus lengths are 35 and 40 ft, and widths are 96 or 102 in. The wider ones,
where permitted, give more comfortable seats and wider aisles. Seated
capacities are, respectively, 41 to 45 and 49 to 53 passengers. Minibuses,
which commonly seat 10 to 25 persons, are not a standard product and a wide
variety, commonly based on truck or mobile home undercarriages, are in use. European high-capacity vehicles, for example the
London double decker and various articulated designs, with up to 130 spaces,
are gaining increasing attention in the United States.
Operating Urban Transportation Engineering - Part 4
Looking
to the future, many urban planners approach transportation schemes as one of
several mechanisms that can create new and satisfying urban settlements with an
improved "quality of’ life" and also as an aid in restructuring
existing urban areas. They accuse transportation planners of thinking only of moving people and goods. In their view the primary problem becomes one of
defining the urban form or torms that will function to fulfill human
aspirations. The second step is to plan the facilities, including
transportation, that will permit these urban forms to function effectively.
Finally, governmental mechanisms will be created to coordinate and control
public and private investments so that these urban forms and transportation to
serve them can come into being. This approach will, of course, call for
area-wide community planning and the development of either incentives for or
restrictions against private investors and local government to a far greater
degree than has existed in the past. There is evidence that such moves are
being undertaken. For example, beginning in 1972, the Department of
Transportation, using federal funds as the incentive, called for unified
comprehensive plans for urban transportation before federal grants would be
made for highway, airport, or mass-transit projects. Many other governmental
actions at all levels have similar objectives.
Operating Urban Transportation Engineering - Part 3
Finally,
community officials and the public expected transit to operate profitably or at
least to break even and, at times, to pay taxes. In sum: in the United States,
as of 1981, although transit use has increased, the industry is still
financially distressed. Both privately and public operated companies are
usually heavily subsidized by a reluctant public transportation. It is not yet
certain to what degree the gasoline shortages and price increases that began in
1979, along with environmental concerns, will affect transit use and financing.
However, there seems to be little chance that it will again be self-supporting.
The
refusal of many Americans to use public transportation when it is available may not seem entirely rational. Often it is cheaper, nearly as or equally
convenient, and does not carry the attendant problems such as parking and need
for a second car for family use. And yet Americans, "en masse," still
seem willing to pay quite dearly for the independence and the increments of
convenience, freedom of movement, and time saving (often not realized] offered
by the private auto mobile. From a public standpoint, also, use of the private
auto mobile is hardly rational. It is extravagant of valuable street space,
using three to six times as much as mass-transit vehicles'* and it adds to
difficult congestion and parking problems. Yet, in a democracy such as the United
States, public officials have been almost powerless to check this apparently
wasteful process. Proposals to apply "transportation pricing" to make
driving more costly have been made but to date have been
applied in only a few instances.
Institutional Constraints Of Transportation Engineering
In the
United States, facilities and vehicles for transportation are provided in a
variety of ways. Considering only highway based situations, private owners provide
almost all of the automobiles and trucks while government furnishes the bulk of
the public transit vehicles. In sum, the provision and operation of these
vehicles consume about 92 cents of the highway dollar. Highways, which take
most of the remainder, are constructed, operated, and maintained by state and
local governments.There are substantial grants of
federal money. These federal funds and state subventions to local agencies are
largely allocated by formula. In contrast, federal and state funds for public transportation go directlv to urban transit agencies, often in the form of
individual grants for specific purposes. Under these conditions it is to be
expected that all granting agencies, politicians, and the public will demand a
voice in how the funds are to be expended.
Superimposed
on the wishes of and controls imposed by those concerned with transportation are the missions of and powers granted to other governmental units. For
example, land-use controls primarily rest with local planning agencies must deal with many considerations other than
transportation. Again, transportation plans come under the scrutiny of agencies
carrying out legislation and other directives about air, water, noise, visual,
ana other impacts of transportation on the environment. Although agencies such
as these usually do not have control over financing, they can veto or force
changes in plans through regulation. Yet another set of controlling influences
comes through court or other actions by individuals, groups, or organizations.
Common legal approaches are to challenge enabling legislation or regulations,
to demand that an environmental impact statement be made, or to protest its
adequacy if one has been done.
Planning, to
be effective, must recognize and deal with institutional constraints such as
these and others not mentioned. As indicated earlier, this has been possible
where a common purpose exists, as with construction of the rural Interstate
System in the late 1950s and 1960s. There were, of course, differences in
opinion among federal, state, and local interests over financing, location,
and other details, but these were resolved and the system largely completed.
However, when consensus is lacking as, for example, over the desirability of
completing certain segments of the urban Interstate System, institutional
constraints often block implementation of proposed plans or delay them for long
periods of time. Issues such as funding, land use, regulation imposed on one
governmental agency by another, and court actions, with these at more than one
level of government, can all come into play. Then it becomes very difficult to
carrv major projects through, even with the most caret'ullv developed
approaches. Rather, today's focus is largely on small scale, short-range solutions,
typified by those discussed later in this chapter under the headings of
Shorter-Range Planning and Transportation System Management
Transportation Engineering Spproach To Public Transportation
An
alternative or complementary approach to public transportation hearings is to involve the
public from the time that planning begins. This approach, briefly summarized,
is as follows:
1. Seeking
out and soliciting the cooperation of public officials, influential
individuals, and business, residential, or conservation groups or organizations
that can speak for
the
community. Often a special staff is created to coordinate or carry out this
function. Some agencies maintain continuous liaison with local community
leadership rather than attempting to establish it when a project seems
imminent. Again, surveys to determine community attitudes may be structured to
identify informal as well as formal leaders. This approach is particularly
valuable where the degree of influence of certain vocal individuals is unknown.
2. Creating the opportunities for this community leadership
to participate continuously in planning, beginning at the earliest possible
time.
3. Developing skills to organize and use
constructive and continued participation of and with the public in group
meetings, workshops, hearings, and many other activities
A classic
example of a situation that led to an ongoing organization to promote citizen
and community participation has been in Boston. There, in 1969, a combination
ot neighborhood and environmental groups and advocacy planners challenged the
need or a section of the Interstate through downtown Boston. Based on the
recommendation of a blue-ribbon task force created to make a re studv. the
governor placed a freeze on highway construction inside Route 128, which
circles Boston to the west on roughly a 10-mile radius. This study, w'hich was
set up to be participatory but decisive, multivalued, equitable, and to involve
public participation by formal groups and in workshops, was established in a
state office responsible to the governor. Ten percent of the study tunds w'ere
allocated for community liaison, public participation, and technical assistance
for these functions. The final recommendation and result was not to build the
Interstate route and certain other highways but to expand transit. At the same time of authorized Interstate funds were transferred to the
transit program, as permitted by federal law
Citizen and Community Participation in Transportation Planning and Decision Making
To provide an opportunity tor the public to be heard and provide its inputs to public transportation works planning, it has been common to hold public hearings before major projects are approved. Such hearings on major decisions sometimes are required by law or by agency regulations. The criticism is often leveled that hearings are held after all major decisions have been made and are considered by officials to be a formality rather than an opportunity for community expression. However, particularly in the recent past, the objections transportation engineering raised by a coalition of opposition forces to proposed projects have been so strong that officials have found it necessary to reject the proposed plan or to make major changes in it. Thus, although public hearings may be required, their effectiveness in gaining community agreement and support has been seriously questioned.
The Changing Role Of Highway And Transportation Planning Part 2
Since the early 1970s, the continued growth of motor vehicle use, the planning premises and approaches of highway or transportation agencies, and the proposals for highway improvement stemming from them have been challenged on many fronts. No longer is there a consensus that the private automobile should provide almost all transportation. In fact, some governmental agencies have been created whose functions are to make its use unattractive. In addition, relatively lower funding for highways and the increasing cost of maintaining and rehabilitating existing facilities are claiming larger and larger sums of the available money, leaving less for construction. Concerns over the environment and energy are reducing some forms of travel by automobile’ and many governmental policies have been, at least until 1981 when President Reagan's fiscal policies began to be implemented, aimed at shifting some of the remainder to a variety of viable and acceptable forms of public transportation. Increasingly, planning is dealing with. transportation and its implications as an integrated whole rather than separately by mode. Furthermore, where motor vehicles are concerned, less attention is being given to planning new facilities and more to short-term programs and system management, commonly called TSM, to make better or different uses of existing facilities through modifications and more effective management.
All in all, highway and public transportation planners have been£ forced to move away from the earlier engineering orientation. Instead they must concentrate on decision-making made in the political rather than the professional arena. They are still groping for approaches to this new set of problems.
This chapter is merely an introduction to these complex subjects. It approaches them by (1) looking at the planning dilemma, (2) outlining a possible approach to planning, (3) examining the urban problem and public transportation for it, (4) outlining data gathering procedures, and (5) treating several planning situations and the means for handling them. It draws on many sources, and gives references to those that, to the authors, seem most pertinent.
’For example, the gasoline shortage brought a decrease in visitors of about 25% to the more remote national parks in the summer of 1979.
The Changing Role Of Highway And Transportation Planning Part 1
In the United States before 1930 (and in
many developing nations today) the primary attention of highway agencies was on
rural areas; it focused on "getting out of the mud" by establishing a
system of all-weather roads from rural areas to the nearest town. With this
objective there seemed to be little need for "planning"; the problem
was to get these roads built. Long-distance transport of people and goods was
left to the railroads. Cities were responsible for the construction of their
streets; public transportation was carried out by private enterprise, primarily
with electric street cars.
About 1930 the
attitude of highway agencies toward planning began to change. City streets were
in relative distress, and many rural highways were inadequate. The practice of
using all federal aid and the bulk of state highway funds for the improvement
of main rural highways and letting urban areas fend for themselves needed
examination. To get facts on which to base decisions, the so-called
"highway planning surveys" were undertaken. Beginning with the
Federal-Aid Act of 1934, Congress authorized expenditures, without matching
state funds, not to exceed 1 V2% of federal-aid funds apportioned to each state
for making a complete road inventory and for planning, surveys, and engineering
investigations of projects for construction in the future. By 1940, all the
state highway departments were assembling the facts necessary to develop long-
range highway-improvement programs. But this effort and the accompanying
federal and state financing continued, until after World War II, to have rural
and highway focuses. Intercity transport was still left to the railroads.
Cities were responsible for their streets. Public transportation was still
largely in private hands, but was shifting from street car to bus. Integrated
transportation planning was unknown.
The period from
the late 1940s until about 1970 was one of great change in transportation
facilities and their use. Motor-vehicle and heavy-truck travel measured in
vehicle miles tripled in both rural and urban areas. Public consensus was that
more and better highways were needed, including the Interstate Freeway System.
At the same time, highway agencies expanded their programs to deal with urban
congestion. Among the consequences of these practices were the veritable
explosion of cities into the suburbs accompanied by decay of near down town
areas, a two-third's decrease in public transit ridership, and financial
distress and public takeover of many privately owned transit operations. Also,
railroads lost most of their intercity passengers to the private automobile,
buses, and airlines, and trucks assumed increasing importance in long-haul
freight transportation. Even so, planning was still primarily directed at
accommodating the demands of motor vehicles, with little attention to the
interrelationships among modes or the deterioration of public transportation.
The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)
The Institute of Transportation Engineers is
a society whose members have professional interests in all aspects of traffic
and public transportation management. The institute publishes its ITE
Journal"
every month and sponsors the Transportation and
Traffic Engineering Handbook. ITE also has excellent technical committees
which, along with other studies, develop standards, particularly for traffic control devices.
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Associations of Local Governments Transportation Organisation
Local governments also have associations that
sponsor activities in the highway and public transportation fields. An example
is the National Association of Counties and its affiliated National Association
of County Engineers (NACE). Among its other activities has been the publication
of a series of technical and management manuals. The National League of Cities
and the American Public Works Association operate in a parallel manner.
State Transportation and Highway Departments
As of 1979, some 40 states had followed the pattern of the federal government and organized Departments of Transportation. In them are centered state-level activities in highways, mass transit, airways, railways, and sometimes marine. They are also the center of overall transportation planning. In some instances, other functions such as driver licensing, vehicle licensing and inspection, and policing are included.
In state departments of transportation, the level of attention devoted to the various modes varies markedly. Almost always, the highway division will incorporate fully developed design, construction, maintenance, and operation activities and the laboratories and other facilities to support them. In some departments, planning activities are under the highway division; in others there is a common planning unit for highways and public transportation. Activity and staffing levels of the other divisions may be lower than for highways. For example, the public transportation, railroad, and aviation branches may function as advisors to state government and local agencies and as a mechanism for passing through or distributing funds from federal or state sources. These diversities at state level are to be expected, since situations among the 50 states are so different.
Ten states retain state highway departments as separate entities. Their activities parallel those of the highway divisions of state departments of transportation.
State organizations for carrying out the highway function all deal with similar technical problems, but on far different scales. Mileages administered range from less than 1100 to more than 76,000; annual expenditures from less than $70 million to more than $1.4 billion.
State departments typically are headed either by a director, or by a commission of three to seven members appointed by the governor, which in turn selects & director or chief engineer. With an appointed director, responsibility is clear and centralized, but political forces may be direct and strong. Under the commission form of organization, the chief officer is less vulnerable. Furthermore, if commissioners are appointed at large rather than by districts, and with stag¬gered terms, there is a further cushion against partisan control and conflicts over where and how funds are to be spent. Today, all but a few state transportation or highway agencies operate on a highly professional basis and under civil service rather than the spoils system.
Many state agencies carry out research in all areas affecting their operations. All have well-staffed in-house or affiliated laboratories for research and testing.
Urban Mass Transit Adminstration (UMTA)
UMTA is the division of DOT concerned with developing, improving, and promoting the use of public transportation. It carries out its mission primarily through a program of grants and loans to metropolitan or other local transit agencies. Among them are:
1. Discretionary grants in large sums for heavy or light rail or other facilities for large urban areas.
2. Financial aid, distributed by formula, for the purchase of equipment such as buses and other transit needs.
3. Grants for demonstration projects, from large projects such as people movers to experiments in paratransit
4. Sponsored research and educational efforts.
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LEGAL FOUNDATION FOR HIGHWAYS AND PUBLIC TRANSIT
In the United States, government has since early times assumed the responsibility for providing and regulating roads and streets for public use. This concept, and the principles of law that support it, developed in Great Britain and, even earlier, with the Romans.' Fundamental authority for and control over roads, excepting the 6% on federal lands, rest at the state rather than the federal level. Thus, the constitution of each state, and the acts of each state legislature in carrying out the provisions of that constitution, provide the foundations for highway policy. Within the limits of its constitutional powers, the legislature may delegate its authority for roads to a state highway or transportation commission or director, and to county, township, district, and city authorities. However, control over all highway matters in a given state rests primarily in the state constitution and the legislature. It follows that existing plans for highway administration, finance, and other affairs may be modified by suitable state legislative action. Likewise, with exceptions related to the regulation of interstate commerce, the individual states control highway use.
Public transportation also is controlled at the state or local and not the national level. Originally it was provided by private enterprises operating under franchises granted by state or local jurisdictions. However, today most public transportation is provided by public agencies under authority granted by the respective state legislatures.
The role of the federal government in most highway and transportation matters is almost completely different from that of the states. Congress, however, exercise authority parallel to that of the state legislatures over the mileage i federal lands. On the other hand, it does not have jurisdiction over state and local roads in the several states. Its sole but very considerable power comes through control of the substantial sums of money granted to the individual states or local transit operations under the provisions of a continuing series of federal- aid highway and mass transportation acts, and, in 1978, a combined Surface Transportation Act.
A few among the many federal levers include: (a) restricting the use of federal-aid funds to designated groups of roads designed and constructed to approved standards; (b) requiring that the states provide matching funds; (c) possibly withholding allotted federal aid from a state that has given insufficient maintenance to a road constructed earlier with federal-aid funds or which violates some other federal provision, and (d) stipulating the conditions under which block grants for transit will be made. Thus, through curbs on the use of its money, the federal government has consistently given direction to the high-way and transit policies of the individual states. In contrast to the United States, where primary responsibility for highways and public transportation rests with the individual state governments, the central government of many countries retains direct control of at least the major high-ways and sometimes the transit systems.
Traffic Safety Education Part 2
Not discipline the driver (especially the drivers of public transport) in traffic, add the dominant role of men as the main cause of accidents. Data obtained from DLLAJR, Department of Transportation, for example, more than 85% of the factors causing road accidents in Indonesia is a human factor, especially the drivers. This is due to a violation of the signs and road markings, such as: violation of traffic signals at intersections, signs and markings prohibited offense prepared, the maximum speed limit violations, violations are prohibited from parking or stopping at intersections.
Safety Aspect For Transport Vehicles
Keys in the field of transportation safety factor worthiness of vehicles, including :
a) Poor Maintenance.
b) Controled component design.
c) Corrosion and Wear.
d) Insecure load
Efforts In Addressing Safety In The Field of Transportation
1) Implement the four basic strategies to reduce traffic accidents
(A) Single site or "blackspots"
(B) Mass Action Plan.
(C) Route Action Plan.
(D) Area Wide Schemes
2) Insert the main component in the design, such as:
(A) Road signs and markings.
(B) Road catagory and cross-section.
(C) Speed ??Limits, Sight distances.
(D) Curves and Superelevation.
(E) Drainage.
(F) Obstacle and Safety Fencing.
(G) Medians and Barriers, Lighting.
(H) The bus stop and lay-bys.
(I) Intersection.
(J) Pedestrian facilities.
(K) Traffic management
Goals of Transportation
Transportation goals for any users is to make transport that :
a. Safe / Good.
b. Comfortable.
c. Conduct / Current.
d. Economical
To create a safe and smooth transportation, required the participation of:
a. Government
- Centre (Ministry: Transportation, Public Works)
- (Bappeda, Department of Local Government)
b. Related Company
c. Road Management Company
d. Public transport users.
Public Transport Operations Management Strategy
This transport engineering management includes:
1) Improvement of operational, which consists of:
a) Changes are periodically city bus lane
b) Changes in schedule, for purposes of timeliness
c) The efficiency of passenger numbers and ticket payment efficiency
2) Ease of switching modes, which can be:
a) Location of the city bus stop is a strategic
b) made a park and ride facility, which allows the movement of private vehicles to transport the bus or train.
c) Coordination and integration between modes, which allow people to move transport mode (eg: Train with city buses).
d) Increased comfort at bus stops, providing seating, shelter, etc..
3) The efficiency of management of management, which include:
a) Improve maintenance of fleet vehicles on a regular basis.
b) Increase the comfort and safety for passengers.
4) Selection of the appropriate type of transportation, such as:
a) In terms of quality: public bus (with AC or non AC), fast buses, executive buses.
b) In terms of passenger capacity: microbus (+- 12 people), the bus is (+- 30 people), a large bus (+- 55 people)
Good Transport Engineering management hope will be applicable in any county not only in big city but in village an all coverage area in your country
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