The Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) last week released its guidance on ‘Buses in Urban Developments’. Peter Jackson takes a look at what this guidance might mean for the future of urban public transport.
In today’s world, urban planning is an essential exercise. With only so much space to build on, every square inch of redeveloped land needs to be carefully thought through, each road carefully constructed and every housing development meticulously laid-out. It’s serious business: building in the wrong area or overlooking existing developments could have serious implications for the local economy.
As it happens, few things rely on urban planning more than buses. In the words of Andreas Markides, President at the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT): “Buses play a vital part in providing accessibility for everyone and, through their efficient use of space, in supporting the viability of high quality urban places. For buses to play their full role, however, urban developments must be designed specifically to encourage their use. This involves bringing together the planning of land uses, the access routes to bus stops, and the bus infrastructure.
“CIHT firmly believes that buses have a significant role to play in providing sustainable connectivity and we hope this document will help to promote that role within the transport system and in the creation of high quality urban and rural environments.”[wlm_nonmember][…]
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The report
Launched at an event in London on Tuesday, January 23, the report is intended to offer policymakers, planners and developers essential advice on how to put buses at the heart of a town or city’s layout, thereby maximising their potential usage and efficiency. The guidance has been endorsed by a number of organisations and trade bodies including the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT), the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and bus operator Stagecoach.
Essentially, the document focuses on how to ensure buses don’t get left behind in urban areas, arguing that they should be, “integral to the urban fabric” – a view which is hard to disagree with amid growing environmental concerns.
Besides benefiting air quality, the CIHT points out that: “Bus users contribute substantially to retail activity in town centres”, with buses themselves “contributing to active travel and healthier lifestyles because of walking (or cycling) to and from bus stops.”
Bus operators themselves are seriously up against it though; convincing motorists to leave their cars on the drive in cities with ample low-cost parking will prove challenging. Operators will have to work on making their services more desirable, installing extras like USB charging points and ensuring their vehicles are clean and quiet. However, a crucial part of a bus service’s desirability lies in its efficiency. Poorly planned bus routes which amble around unnecessarily are an instant turn-off for customers. According to the CIHT, better route planning can not only result in more effective services, but mean stops can be spaced further apart. In short, it’s all a question of compromise: a balance must be found between ensuring a route takes in important facilities and landmarks while – at the same time – making sure it’s regular and consistent.
Avoiding problems for operators
Perhaps one of the more noteworthy sections of the report is A.5 – Policies to avoid problems for bus operators. As mentioned previously, operators face a lot of competition from motorists, particularly in urban areas with low-cost parking. According to the CIHT, car and van owners make only 1.4% of their trips by bus, while members of non-car-owning households make 23% of theirs by bus.
Towns such as Nottingham, Brighton & Hove and Reading have low car ownership figures compared to nearby areas – yet also show strong bus ridership figures. All of this proves just how interlinked car ownership is with bus use, suggesting a great deal more work needs to be done to convince motorists to hop on the bus – whether it be for environmental reasons or purely for convenience. That’s not to say progress isn’t being made however; according to local publication Reading and Berkshire News, Reading saw bus usage drastically rise between 2012 and 2016 – 22.8% to be precise.
The CIHT argues: “Retailers may ask for plentiful parking at low cost in their town centre, but this encourages car use and discourages use of buses, and so increases traffic impacts, which in turn may damage the town centre economy.”
The report also points out the importance of bus priority measures. However, in many areas bus ridership will need to show a significant rise before local councils consider adding additional bus lanes – a vicious circle in a way.
Bus integration
Something which all local authorities can affect in the short term, though, is the way buses are integrated with other forms of transport. Buses can be supported politically in a number of ways, suggests the CIHT: “There are nonphysical factors that bear directly on travel behaviour and location choices, such as the relative costs of travel by car and public transport, parking availability, and regulations for streets or areas governing access by time of day or class of vehicle.” It seems essential for local Government to keep an eye on the future and, with buses looking set to play an important role, design and implement policies which allow them to flourish.
Infrastructure Delivery Plans (IDP) are also cited as an important part of a local authority’s transport plan: “The IDP sets out what is needed, where it is needed and when. Annual updates are then provided on the delivery of schemes. Each infrastructure type is accompanied by an infrastructure delivery schedule, which provides further detail on delivery, funding sources where known, and any funding gaps.” Crucially, IDPs also help a service to secure funding under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Undoubtedly, as much as it’s important to encourage bus use, discouraging motorists from taking their cars into city centres seems to be becoming necessary practice – both for environmental and congestion reasons. The CIHT’s report outlines a number of ‘traffic limitation techniques’, each designed to free up the roads and boost public transport use.
These include:
• Reallocating space from roads and parking to public (pedestrian) space;
• Reallocating road space (or time) to favour buses (or trams), including bus priority measures;
• Limiting the supply of car parking, both on-street and off-street;
• Selective application of high parking charges (note that charges are not always under local authority control);
• Time or period restrictions on parking, properly enforced;
• Limited access zones (such as pedestrian-only areas and bus-only streets);
• Congestion charging or other forms of road pricing;
• Subsidies to public transport use;
• Enhanced pedestrian crossing facilities;
• Traffic calming and low speed limits for general traffic;
• Provision of easy transfer between modes (bus stops close to railway stations, Park & Ride on the edge of towns) and timetables that allow connected journeys;
• Company, school, residential and community travel plans, and personal travel advice services, to encourage more sustainable travel.
Bus-friendly infrastructure
Section B of the paper focuses on infrastructure – building the foundations necessary to ensure bus services’ future popularity. The institution advises that both the design of the streets and the route layouts themselves should be carefully considered. For example, stops should not be placed rigidly at set intervals – rather, they need to be situated close to key local areas reducing the distance passengers need to walk when they get off. In terms of maintaining a service’s desirability, the report stresses the need for properly-equipped bus shelters at every stop – seating and passenger information included.
The areas surrounding bus stops cannot be overlooked, either. Paths and pedestrian areas leading to stops need to be generously-sized, says the CIHT, providing enough protection from fumes and road noise and offering enough space for people to feel a comfortable distance away from the road. In short, the less exposure to road noise and air pollution on the way to the stop, the better. Safe and convenient road crossings are an essential too. Providing seating areas along key routes to stops is also a welcome development, particularly giving older passengers the chance to rest during their journey.
Bus priority measures and preferential routing should be considered, the report points out: “There are many possible techniques ranging from fixed infrastructure such as bus gates, through bus lanes and turning privileges, to traffic control systems that can prioritise buses through the network according to lateness and the number of passengers on board. It is important that bus operators discuss priority measures with local authority planning, highway and traffic officers. This needs to happen regarding the bus network generally but also whenever significant development schemes are planned.” Such measures can offer considerable benefits to a service’s journey time, consistency, reliability and punctuality – all of great benefit both to passengers and bus operators. Unsurprisingly, the capital seems to lead the way when it comes to bus priority techniques, employing bus-friendly traffic calming measures to keep services running on time, despite congestion.
The future
“Bus operators have to respond to opportunities arising from development as they find it but also have an interest in shaping new development to maximise passenger demand. Local planning, highway and transport authorities influence and shape the demand for bus use through local spatial and transport plans and development management, as well as through demand and traffic management measures. There are much better prospects for high levels of sustainability, including a high bus mode share of local travel, if these agencies work together,” section D of the report reads.
“Spatial planners need to work with highway, traffic and transport departments as well as bus operators when preparing local development plans. Within the framework of development plans, further collaboration should occur during the master planning of large new developments, and the planning of other developments that may present opportunities for improving bus infrastructure, or solving an existing bus operation problem.”
It seems collaboration is the key word here; in order for any of the CIHT’s guidance to be effective, authorities and organisations have to work together. Ultimately, with the implementation of low emission zones and cities becoming ever more crowded, they’d be wise to do just that.[/wlm_ismember]