Traffic solutions from Colombia

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

http://www.newsday.co.tt/businessday/0,166825.html
Thursday, September 27 2012 (Newsday)

"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation,” Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogota. This submission from GM is gratefully acknowledged.

Peñalosa’s policies were based on maximising the mobility of people, through maximising the development and management of appropriate public transportation while simultaneously minimising the use of personal autos. He would be most unpopular in TT where all the transport policies have focused on maximising the use of personal autos, while completely ignoring the need to organise and manage public transport. One administration tried to introduce the highest category of public transport that is the most expensive per km of all forms of public transport: rapid rail transit; the presumption being that people will only leave their cars to use sophisticated trains, not buses.

Some of Peñalosa’s policies were unpopular with certain sectors of the city of Bogota, but improved the city's mobility, by introducing the Pico y Placa (‘rush hour and license plate), a restriction on the peak period circulation of private vehicles. During weekday peak periods, licence plates ending with four given numbers couldn't circulate, thus about 40 percent of the vehicles.

He also removed cars from parking on sidewalks by lifting these sidewalks and installing bollards. He initiated the world-renowned TransMilenio Mass Transit System.

These actions are components of Transportation Demand Management, which is critical for TT to solve the horrendous mess of traffic congestion that we have got ourselves into. Interestingly, I am not sure if most people recognise the primary causes of this situation. For example, I read on a weekend newspaper letter to the editor, a request being made to improve the road infrastructure to “make driving enjoyable once again.”

Transportation demand management is any action or set of actions aimed at reducing the impact of traffic by influencing people’s travel behaviour. Managing travel demand today is about providing travellers with choices of mode, location, route, and time.

Strategies to manage demand are now more critical to better transportation oper-ations and system performance than strategies to increase capacity of facilities (BERMAN Wayne (2002) Travel Demand Management. Thoughts on the New Role for TDM as a Management and Operations Strategy, Institute of Transportation Engineers Journal, September, pp 24-28).

A comprehensive demand management strategy involves (Institute of Transportation Engineers (1989) A Tool Box for Alleviating Traffic Congestion, ITE, Washington, DC), in no order of priority:

(a) Growth management. Growth management can be defined as the use of public policy to regulate the location, geographic pattern, population density, quality and rate of growth of development. A comprehensive growth management strategy can include not only transportation actions, but also actions dealing with housing, economic development, open space, and community infrastructure.

(b) Parking Management. A parking management programme is any plan by which parking space is provided, controlled, regulated, or restricted in any manner. Parking management actions can be categorised into six major categories: on-street parking, off-street parking, fringe and corridor parking, pricing, enforcement and adjudication, and marketing.

• A parking management strategy that encourages more public transport usage would include the following features

• Pricing. Minimisation of free parking

• Fringe parking. Promote park-and-ride lots.

• Maximise use of existing parking facilities used for public transport purposes.

(c) Public Transport or Transit Services. The implementation of a well-organised transit system that delivers high quality passenger transport services in a safe, cost-effective and environmentally sound manner. The transit system should be:

• Accessible to all members of the industrial community
• Affordable, representing good value for money
• Caring, treating passengers with dignity and respect
• Comfortable, improving vehicle standards and ride quality
• Effective, serving a wide range of origins and destinations
• Environmentally sound, progressively reducing the environmental impact of transit services
• Responsive to changing travel needs and patterns of activity
• Safe, ensuring high standards
• Secure, providing a travel experience that is not blighted by fear of assault, attack or other anti-social behaviour throughout the journey
• Likely to increase the proportion of people who choose to use public transport to meet
• Appropriate, providing alternative modes and seamless inter-modal transfers

(d) Road Pricing. By charging motorists a price that represents the cost they create by using a particular road, individual drivers will react to this cost by (i) accepting it, (ii) adopting another mode of transportation, (iii) going another route, or (iv) foregoing the trip.

Politicians are terrified of road pricing. How can you get a person to pay for something that has always been free? If roads were priced like any other scarce commodity, better use would be made of existing space and the revenues raised could be used to improve public transport. The mere fact of making motorists pay their way would free capacity to such an extent that road transit travel would become easier and faster, and subsidies could be reduced.

Some governments are starting to accept that there may be no alternative. Charging for ownership rather than use, as most tax systems do, makes little sense. Heavy fixed costs, including vehicle duties, insurance and depreciation, merely encourage drivers to use their cars more because the perceived marginal costs of motoring are so small. Drivers are so wedded to their cars that, perhaps, they will be deterred only by higher motoring costs or regulation.

(e) Auto-Restricted Zones. An auto-restricted zone (ARZ), in its broadest sense, refers to any land area where vehicular travel is regulated, controlled or restricted in some manner. A variety of techniques have been used to accomplish this, including physical barriers to auto access, parking controls, exclusive use lanes, and turn prohibitions. ARZ’s can be implemented for many reasons, but experience has shown that the three most stated objectives are: (i) to preserve and enhance the vitality of urban centres, (ii) to improve the environmental quality in urban centres, and (iii) to encourage the utilisation of non-auto modes.

(f) Ridesharing. The term ridesharing generically denotes the act of sharing vehicles for the trip to work. Ridesharing can involve carpooling, vanpooling, and buspooling.

Carpooling involves the use of an employee’s private vehicle to carry one or more fellow employees to work, either using one car and sharing expenses, or rotating vehicle use so that no money changes hands.

Van pooling generally involves the use of an 8- to12-seater van, and the fixed and operating at least partially paid by the riders through monthly fares. There are three types of vanpool programmes: company-sponsored, third-party and owner-operated.

Buspools are usually initiated by employers, although residential-based buspools may also be formed under the auspices of transit agencies.

Government policy that favours (i) private car ownership, and (ii) city-centre-concentrated Government ministry head offices and other public buildings should consider the following impacts:

• The resultant demand by the private sector to be near Government buildings;
• Increased parking demands
• Increased traffic in the East-West Corridor
• Decreased productivity-hours per day due to increased in travel times
• Increased overall travel cost
• Increased fuel costs per year
• Increased accident and road fatality rates
• Increased atmospheric pollution
• Increased demands for disposal of tyres and disused vehicles

[Habit7]

I see my sig inspired someone...

[src1983]

Europe is doing the same....

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

I see my sig inspired someone...

no, I only saw your sig when you mentioned it

[foss]

I see my sig inspired someone...

no, I only saw your sig when you mentioned it

[wagonrunner]

Amen. pity the other dailies dont run this as well.

[ismithx]

i wish my government was this forward thinking

[Corn Bird]

^ there is definitely a need for something to be done about traffic. but all the plans will come to very little if there is no enforcement.

take for example, curepe intersection on the eastern main road. the jackass taxi drivers who are heading east on the eastern main road and want to make u-turn to go west should pass though sellier and turn south onto riverside and then wait on the traffic light to head west on the eastern main road.

curepe_intersection.jpg (37.36 KiB) Viewed 2476 times

but instead these jackasses go straight through the lights and do a u-turn on the main road at about the point marked X on the map (this wreaks havoc at the curepe junction). and they do all this despite a mobile police station parked at the corner...

[Habit7]

^^^Yip they always like to do that, turn by the old grocery. I doesn't give them chance though, but them men have nothing to lose, b13 bumper cheap and it not their car.



But back on topic, we dealing with a gov't that is starting to decrease the fuel subsidy, while not looking to provide mass transit infrastructure.

Then some how they hope to improve productivity

[sMASH]

soo, instead of making cites and towns no-maxi zones, we should do the opposite, make them no-less than 7passenger vehicle zones.

i saying we need to have a lot of flexibility because we cannot change up the layout of the towns and cities. i think that small maxies and 7 seaters are the way to go for in town trips. for the same foot print, u get a lot more people transported. for long routes, where there are no stops, use big maxies and buses.
i am against the train system because a lot of real estate would be needed to make that, and it would be every costly. then, when there is no rush, hardly any use would be for them until its time to get the people back home. having them stop at many stops would just make the trip very long, making any trip after very long after. use big maxis and buses for long non stop routes and the smaller 7seaters and 12 seaters for the short and frequent stops.
the problem with the trains, is that when it breaks down, there would be a great number of people needing transport with a system that not able to flex to take up that task, it is not even slack, it is a big task.
with multiple units, operating free lance as it is now, if even 10 units break down, there would be a lot of other units able to soak up the extra passengers.
with trains, there would not be other trains to soak up the stranded passengers of others.


but the greatest radical thing i have thought about to ease up the traffic is this. the problem with the rush hours is that most of the people have to get to the same places at the same time. since we cannot ease up the people, and we can't create more places to reach, the only ting remaining is the time.
i say, if u get the people to reach the places at different times, it would reduce the pile up.
follow with me.

u leaving private businesses with their 8 to 4 routine.
the government services and utilities, if u start business hours at 6 am and close at 6pm then about half of the people who have to reach in the cities and towns would not have to do so at 8 am. so that would be half of the traffic ease up.
the government services would operate in a shift system. opening for business at 6 and that shift runs till 1pm. the evening shift runs from 11 am and goes till 6 pm
check this, the lunch time hour there would be the maximum amount of servers. i thinking banks, how many tellers are missing. if the government places make more tellers available, during the time11 to 1 u would get the fastest movement.
plenty people who would have gone early to get a good spot in the quay would not do that. so the rush in the morning would be eased up.
also, since it is open at 6, more people could go earlier to sort out business before work, so the business don't have to suffer with workers taking time off, and customers don't have to suffer delays in business.
the people could also stay back and do business after work as well.

so, the morning rush and evening rushes get staggered over a longer period of time instead of that 8 o'clock thing. and people have more opportunity to get things done so they could be more productive

i would rather travel than put a cng or even lpg system mod. the benefit does not justify the inconvenience.

my ideas are a lot more cost effective than trains in this small country and a lot more fault tolerant.

[foss]

^ tl,dr

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

sMash, good ideas - but it is going to cost alot to employ a second set of people for Govt jobs.

[dread_2002]

Trinituner for Ministy of Transportation!

[afterburners]

But is not Carnival everyday. The only time ppl would put themselves out the way that much is at Carnival.

^ there is definitely a need for something to be done about traffic. but all the plans will come to very little if there is no enforcement.

take for example, curepe intersection on the eastern main road. the jackass taxi drivers who are heading east on the eastern main road and want to make u-turn to go west should pass though sellier and turn south onto riverside and then wait on the traffic light to head west on the eastern main road.

curepe_intersection.jpg

but instead these jackasses go straight through the lights and do a u-turn on the main road at about the point marked X on the map (this wreaks havoc at the curepe junction). and they do all this despite a mobile police station parked at the corner...

[Dizzy28]

plenty people who would have gone early to get a good spot in the quay would not do that. so the rush in the morning would be eased up.
also, since it is open at 6, more people could go earlier to sort out business before work, so the business don't have to suffer with workers taking time off, and customers don't have to suffer delays in business.
the people could also stay back and do business after work as well.

Good Ideas in theory but this is Trinidad...
However was just wondering about the statement above? Are the people preparing to board a ship?

[cornfused]

sMash

In principle your argument seem feasible up to the point of a two shift Public Sector . These employees are not among the best paid and to change the operational mode of public services is a very very hard task , trust me I and others have been attempting this for the last few years with different strategies , watching grass grow would have probably brought more job satisfaction . We need not be reminded of the "constitutional reform " talk that was a beaten record by those in power now and where this has gone .

That aside the low rates of pay may allow for this shift system to occur.

Right now we have two large car parks on the eastern and western parts of down town POS , even if these are used fully a few others are needed to adequately deal with vehicle flow into the city to support a park and ride .

I am of the view that an efficient bus system on the PBR is not the most efficient means of transport on the Corridor nor is the Highway to go to south . However in the short to medium term a similar bus system could be used on a bus dedicated PBR and a Bus lane only on both the north bound and south bound of the Uriah. This maybe can generate some much needed but small efficiencies in our mass transport system.

We would also need proper policing of these modes of transport as in crowded standing transport pickpockets are very common and we already have persons holding up maxis in the Corridor.

The buses from this article are reported to have a traveling public of 800,000 daily but drive on their dedicated routes more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransMilenio.

Again we need Public discussion on the way forward with transport.

For us this would mean new stations and stops designed for ease of use

[Rory Phoulorie]

For those who are interested. The seminar is FREE.