Planning for Public Transport Accessibility

An International Sourcebook

Carey Curtis, Jan Scheurer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317080077
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Bringing together a comparative analysis of the accessibility by public transport of 23 cities spanning four continents, this book provides a "hands-on" introduction to the evolution, rationale and effectiveness of a new generation of accessibility planning tools that have emerged since the mid-2000s. The Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS) tool is used as a practical example to demonstrate how city planners can find answers as they seek to improve public transport accessibility. Uniquely among the new generation of accessibility tools, SNAMUTS has been designed for multi-city comparisons. A range of indicators are employed in each city including: the effectiveness of the public transport network; the relationship between the transport network and land use activity; who gets access within the city; and how resilient the city will be. The cities selected enable a comparison between cities by old world–new world; public transport modes; governance approach; urban development constraints. The book is arranged along six themes that address the different planning challenges cities confront. Richly illustrated with maps and diagrams, this volume acts as a comprehensive sourcebook of accessibility indicators and a snapshot of current policy making around the world in the realm of strategic planning for land use transport integration and the growth of public transport. It provides a deeper understanding of the complexity, opportunities and challenges of twenty-first-century accessibility planning.

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Introduction

What Is Accessibility Planning and Why Does It Matter?

Cities of the developed and developing world are facing major problems with ever increasing car congestion, rising fuel prices and the need to stem carbon emissions. In response many city planners and politicians are confronting the challenge of how to provide public transport to a standard which offers a viable alternative to the car. This challenge has several dimensions: establishing the most effective infrastructure interventions to make – both spatially and temporally – that enhance accessibility; considering how to link public transport infrastructure with urban development as a means of improving spatial accessibility; finding cost-effective solutions.

A major stumbling block in improving public transport accessibility is the lack of strategic overview. In our work to date (see, for example, Curtis and Scheurer, 2010; Curtis et al, 2013) we have noted that while city planners are prepared to embrace the challenge, they lack the technical planning support tools capable of supporting their endeavours. Accessibility tools provide one solution. Designed well, these tools can offer a means of measuring, visual-ising, and facilitating a stakeholder dialogue about efforts to better integrate transport and land use planning in contemporary cities. Such efforts have led to a variety of narratives on how such integration goals can be achieved in the specific local context of each city or city-region, and assist in the challenges set by the sustainability agenda and the transition to a low-carbon future. A critical overarching theme in this process is the reassessment of the role of public transport systems in the mobility mix of cities, and the imperative to increase the role of public transport modes for urban movement and accessibility particularly where current patterns of car use appear wasteful or excessive.

Historically, planning for urban public transport has seen a number of phases (Schaeffer and Sclar, 1975). Each phase has been the result, on the one hand, of the transport modes available at that time and the urban development needs of the city, and on the other hand, the result of transport policy choices made by bureaucrats and elected officials. Early cities relied on walking as the means of transport and city form was dictated accordingly. With the introduction of horse-powered buses and tramways in the early industrial age cities were able to expand, but for the most part remained compact with resultant health and sanitation problems. The development of suburban railways in the late nineteenth century facilitated greater spatial expansion of settlements, a favoured policy response to the ills of the industrial city, where railway owners were also land developers. The rise of the private motor car in the 1950s saw a significant further expansion of urban boundaries and investment in public transport was all too often abandoned as cities pursued the ‘modern age’. Public transport was often relegated to a ‘welfare option’, deemed only necessary to supply a skeleton service to serve those not able to afford a car or unable to drive.

Since the 1980s there has been a paradigm shift towards sustainable mobility – a response to environmental and later social concerns of urban development, namely the carbon intensity, pollution effects, spatial and socio-economic inequities associated with individual motorised transport (Whitelegg, 1997). A result of these concerns has been a renewed interest in the role of urban public transport. Cities throughout the world are at different stages in the development of their urban public transport systems for the twenty-first century. Some have made astounding progress as they embrace the environmental and economic imperative to keep cities functioning with less reliance on private cars. Others remain tardy, unwilling to recognise that a transport system based on the car as the primary mode is on a collision course with the future resilience of cities. In either case, resource availability dictates that decisions about improving public transport accessibility must be carefully considered beyond simply choosing to keep investing in the car at the expense of public transport, particularly where the total transport budget is finite.

New accessibility tools can assist decision making. Their use can help answer critical planning questions. How should the city develop in future – what is the most suitable urban form to optimise public transport accessibility – polycentric/monocentric, contiguous/dispersed, concentrated and/or decentralised? How should we invest in public transport infrastructure – what are the public transport modes, and their interplay, that deliver the best accessibility outcomes under what physical conditions? What should the focus of operational resources be on – the top-performing routes (by patronage) or a spread to increase network coverage (Walker, 2012)?

This book provides a ‘hands-on’ introduction to the evolution, rationale and effectiveness of a new generation of accessibility planning tools that have emerged since the mid-2000s. The Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS) tool, one such tool developed by the authors, is used as a practical example to demonstrate how city planners can find answers to the questions that arise as they seek to improve the accessibility of their city by public transport.

Uniquely among the new generation of accessibility tools, SNAMUTS has been designed for multi-city comparisons. A range of indicators are employed in each city. Each indicator is designed to measure key aspects of the system, including the effectiveness of the public transport network itself; the relationship between the transport network and land use activity; who gets access within the city; and how resilient the city is. The latter indicator addresses where future opportunities for growth and potential bottlenecks may be located. For each city, these indicators are set against the background of their differing historical development, urban geography and settlement form, spatial configuration of public transport networks and their institutional governance, and strategic plans for the future.

Research Approach

This book draws on a major research project which set out to provide a national benchmark for public transport accessibility in Australian cities by analysing the experience of a range of international cities. For us, integral to our concept of public transport accessibility is the need to consider the accessibility of the transport network and the accessibility of place (the opportunities different places provide to those using the network). This approach lies at the heart of new ideas of land use– transport integration, whereby cities are developed so that public transport can support people’s daily activities as an alternative to the car, and also that land use (activity) can support public transport (by optimising patterns of patronage).

Our interest was in whether an accessibility tool could be employed to deliver comparable outputs for cities and regions with different cultures and histories concerning the evolution and state of the built environment as well as planning and transport policies and institutions. If this could be achieved, then the knowledge could inform Australian policy shapers, and ideally benchmarks could be set for improvements to urban public transport aimed at offering a quality service to all (where currently only between 5 and 10 per cent of trips are made by public transport in Australian metropolitan areas). The challenge was how to design an accessibility tool to address the performance of all relevant transport modes and land use trends within a specific urban or regional environment – bearing in mind the considerable differences in public transport service. We were also interested in how an accessibility tool could be communicated and utilised effectively among a broad range of stakeholders with varying degrees of influence and articulation in the political process and public arena. This book demonstrates the ability of accessibility tools to do just that. Further, we dream that citizens will take up an interest in the question of just how accessible their city is by public transport, especially compared to the car, and use this book as a resource to seek improvements.

Structure of the Book

While accessibility analysis is not new, there is an emerging range of new tools. These have been designed to address contemporary urban planning and transport issues. Many tools remain in the ivory towers of researchers, a limited few have been taken up in planning practice (te Brömmelstroet et al, 2014), and of those, some have been successfully utilised to inform future development and infrastructure investment (Curtis et al, 2013; Curtis and Scheurer, 2010). In Chapter 2 we take the reader through the key network theory and best practice concepts informing the design of the SNAMUTS tool. The eight component indicators are explained alongside practical questions emerging from the introductory discussion. Our aim is to provide the explanations in layman’s terms, thus making the language of transport accessibility accessible to both professionals and interested citizens in terms that align with everyday experience of getting around their city.

Chapters 3 to 8 are organised around six themes consistent with the key questions about planning for public transport in different situations across the globe. Each chapter also features an accessibility profile of each city, illustrated with SNAMUTS maps of each core indicator.

Chapter 3 explores the theme of continuity and change in the Australasian cities of Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Auckland. These cities are by and large characterised by a low-density, horizontally dispersed urban form, strong central cities and high rates of urban growth. Public transport networks are anchored by long-standing radial suburban rail systems and a post-war policy history of prioritising the needs of car-based transport over those of public transport. In recent years, pressures from rising petrol prices, increasing road congestion, a resurgence of public transport usage and a shifting preference particularly of younger generations towards inner urban living have begun to influence the policy focus on the potential of public transport to capture a much greater share of the urban travel market.

Chapter 4 continues with the analysis of New World cities. The theme of stagnation and aspiration paints the picture for a sample of North American cities which share some similarities with their Australian counterparts in terms of their generally high growth rates and the prevalence of post-war, low-density suburban form. There are also some differences in public transport supply, particularly the absence of historically grown suburban rail networks that make a significant contribution to urban mobility in much of the US and Canada. Hence, most contemporary North American public transport networks are the outcome of recent retrofits with high-capacity infrastructure elements. The selection of the four cities – Seattle, Portland, Montreal and Vancouver – reflects the breadth of approaches found across the continent, where city planners seek to establish a new role for public transport in cities that had embraced automobility like no others during a now fading phase of their evolution.

From the New World cities we move to the Old World established cities. In Chapter 5 the theme is ‘more with less’ exploring the relationship between fostering efficiency in a public transport system and achieving accessibility outcomes. European cities follow a range of approaches to designing and managing the public transport–land use context, owing to their varying cultural and historical characteristics as well as varying governance arrangements and planning traditions. The four cities selected – Hamburg, Munich, Porto and Edinburgh – provide an overview of these different approaches. Munich, in less than 50 years, has transitioned from a public transport system based primarily on radial suburban rail and urban trams to one where an expansive metro system designed for the needs of the post-war city forms the backbone of movement, supplemented by trams and buses in a lean, integrated multi-modal network. Hamburg’s approach has a greater complexity, characterised by the need to adapt pre-existing rapid transit systems during post-war reconstruction and the inability to complete the post-war metro expansion program that had served as the rationale for closing the tram system. Edinburgh represents another extreme. The city openly encouraged different public transport operators to compete for passengers in the same network segments, creating a heavily serviced bus system designed to minimise transfers between services. Porto’s bus network is similarly structured to Edinburgh’s, but has seen a gradual transformation towards greater multimodal integration when a new light rail system was introduced at the beginning of this century.

Staying with Europe, Chapter 6 follows the theme ‘eclipsing the car’. Drawing on the cities of Copenhagen, Zurich, Vienna and Barcelona, it becomes evident that there have been dedicated efforts to rein in the role of the car for urban mobility and that this has been underpinned by redirection of resources. Copenhagen has a well-performing, though in a European comparison somewhat underutilised, public transport system whose main competitor in inner urban areas is the bicycle rather than the car – bicycle use is higher than in any other major city except Amsterdam. In Zurich, a metropolitan region with a pronounced dispersed–concentrated settlement structure, departure from a program of urban freeway and metro building in the 1970s led to a strategy to optimise and upgrade existing suburban rail, tram and trolleybus networks into a superbly organised multimodal system. In Vienna, public transport developed as a majority mode through well-targeted infrastructure investments aimed at optimising transport tasks and transport modes. In Barcelona, there has been a strategy to gradually reduce the role of the car in the very dense inner area in favour of improved public transport, expanded pedestrianisation and the reintroduction of the bicycle.

Chapter 9 brings Asian cities into the analysis with a theme of ‘transit-dominance’ in an examination of Singapore and Hong Kong. The extraordinarily rapid growth of high-capacity urban rail systems, now mirrored in many cities across mainland China and other developing Asian countries, has generated a significant land use–transport integration trend and generated accessibility outcomes that will profoundly shape the future form of cities on this most populated continent.

Up to this point the accessibility analysis has focussed mainly on cities developed at the metropolitan scale. In Chapter 8 we examine a settlement trend that has emerged in many urban agglomerations as they grow and begin to merge and overlap geographically. Clusters of self-contained, monocentric cities evolve into multi-centred wider urban regions with growing degrees of regional interdependency and cross-commuting, a process aided by the establishment of high-speed rail or other fast public transport links. We use the example of the Dutch Rand-stad, a polycentric region comprised of the major centres of Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Utrecht and many smaller cities.

Finally Chapter 9 brings together the analysis to enable a reflection on policy questions of importance to planners including the public transport mix and infrastructure that can deliver the best accessibility outcomes; the type of urban form and structure that can optimise accessibility by public transport; the operational input and efficiency.

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Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS)

Understanding the Indicators

Introduction

In order to understand the accessibility analysis of cities presented in the following chapters it is important to explain the construct and rationale behind each indicator used. The starting point for developing an accessibility tool is to take the perspective of an everyday user of a city’s land use – transport system. Everyday users make, and are often constrained by, long-term decisions about where their everyday activities take place, for example, the location of home, workplace, schools and the homes of regular social contacts such as family members or close friends. These locations generally change infrequently, and for many people, the spatial arrangement of these anchor activities will influence any changes they are in a position to make. Individuals also make many short-term, discretionary decisions about activities: where to go shopping, where to socialise away from home, where to engage in recreational pursuits, and how often any of these things occur. A critical premise of accessibility research is to recognise the impact that urban structure and the available transport networks have on the location and distribution of these activities. Everyday users are more likely to frequent activities and places that they perceive as convenient to access. To the extent that such destinations form clusters where a significant number or variety of activities are contained within relatively small areas, we can begin to understand a city as a composition of ‘activity hotspots’ or sub-centres, forming the hubs or nodes of a network in which transport infrastructures act as the links or edges.

People, especially in wealthy and relatively compact cities or parts of cities, are also likely to have a choice of transport modes to get around. They can draw on the services of overlapping, sometimes complimentary and sometimes competing networks for private motorised transport, public transport, walking and cycling. For public transport to assume a significant role in the mobility mix of a city it must offer a viable alternative for as many travel purposes as possible. It must be well aligned with the land uses it serves. The most significant factor in attracting choice travellers to a public transport network is its ability to offer an equivalent to the ‘go anywhere, anytime’ convenience usually associated with the private car, or at a smaller spatial range with non-motorised modes. In large cities, the best way to achieve this is usually to configure public transport as a multimodal network that allows travel along geographical desire lines, at service frequencies high enough to not require timetable consultation, and with seamless transfers between vehicles both in terms of physical co-location and in terms of integrated ticketing and timetable coordination. The interplay of these characteristics is what is known as the ‘network effect’ of public transport services, where the ability of the network as a whole to provide accessibility is superior to that of the sum of its individual components (Mees, 2010a; Nie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: What Is Accessibility Planning and Why Does It Matter?
• 2 Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS): Understanding the Indicators
• 3 Continuity and Change in Australasian Cities
• 4 Stagnation and Aspiration in North American Cities: Overcoming the Totalitarianism of Automobility
• 5 More with Less? Accessibility and Public Transport Efficiency in European Cities
• 6 Eclipsing the Car? Public Transport Designed to Outcompete Private Transport
• 7 Public Transport Dominance in Wealthy Asian Cities
• 8 Polycentric and Multimodal Interfaces in the Dutch Randstad
• 9 Conclusion: Accessibility and Best-Practice Land Use–Transport Integration
• Bibliography
• Appendix 1: Methodological Annotations
• Index