Users wait to board a crowded metro bus. Photo by EMBARQ.

Increasing the use of public transport is a hot topic in the urban transportation world. Making BRT and Metro systems more efficient and improving the user experience increases the ridership. But it is not always clear which improvements are most desired by the riders themselves. Sometimes, user’s views are not taken into account during the decision making process, even though they are the ones who have direct interaction with systems of mass transit, and are most likely to know its problems. Users often complain about being unheard or feeling that their concerns are not being addressed.

Are planners’ and users’ views on the needed changes in BRT systems really aligned? To find out, I decided to do a little experiment. The idea was simple: ask two common BRT users and two experts one question: If you could change 3 things about your BRT system, what would those be?

Knowing when the bus comes

As surprising as it may be, bus frequency, which seems to be the basis of an efficient bus system, appears to be a recurrent problem from the user’s viewpoint. “It is very common to see 5 Metrobuses passing after each other, and therefore they would be half-empty. Sometimes, however, it takes up to 20 minutes until one passes” says Antonio Olvera, from Mexico City. Experts, like Juan Carlos Muñoz from the BRT Excellence Center in Santiago, Chile are aware of this concern. Says Muñoz, “there should be a control scheme that provides reliability to the trips.” There has been some innovation in this field, including apps such as iTransantiago, which provides BRT users in Santiago with timely information about bus arrivals. The LA Metro system provides another example of a possible solution: a 15-minute map showing buses that arrive in less than a quarter of an hour removes the problem of checking timetables often.

The need for a more equitable payment system

“I would like to add an annual or monthly payment systems, just like the ones in Europe” says Ana Mendez from Lima, Perú. This is further supported by Garrone Reck, technical director of Logitrans consulting in Curitiba, Brazil, who expanded on the idea: “There is a need for a policy of discount in the frequent users tariffs. Lower tariffs in the non-peak times could attract more passengers during the idle times, and serve as incentive for time schedules migration, adding flexibility” to the system. Latin American agencies have had a hard time determining reasonable prices that please both the operators and the users. This is linked with the way the financing system of the public transport agencies is structured. Most transport agencies in Latin America run under a principle of self-sustainability, meaning they receive very limited subsidies from the government, if any, once they start operating.

Making buses more comfortable

There is a pressing need to increase the comfort level of the buses. All of the interviewees, both experts and non-experts, spoke of lower occupancy rates, and therefore more space. Many of the suggestions from users addressed similar issues of comfort, including: enlargement of the popular stations, a larger bus fleet, and bigger buses. Cities like Lima are already implementing these changes, enlarging stations such as Angamos by the end of the year.  Some other cities have turned  to bi-articulated buses to meet demand for more space, as in Curitiba, Bogotá and São Paulo, but many other cities still don’t have them. Making buses more comfortable helps people enjoy their commute, and discourages the use of alternative, individualized methods of transport.

Users and experts alike not only spoke of comfort, but the importance of giving a modern image to the buses. Some of the suggestions centered around improvements to internal illumination,  protection from the sun, and even providing Wifi.

Overall, it seems there is a common sense of urgency in Latin America to improve on some of these most elemental attributes of a high quality BRT: timelines, a good payment system, and comfort. Users can then be sure that their thoughts are being heard and put forward by the transport experts in Latin America. SIBRT and EMBARQ Brazil are working a satisfaction survey to make sure that user’s thoughts continue to be heard.

Two cities in Brazil have turned to the internet to improve cyclist safety. Photo by Fora do Eixo.

One of the best modes of transport for a sustainable world – one that offers health benefits, increased mobility, and reduces pollution – is too often sidelined, ignored, or downright dangerous to ride. Of course, we’re referring to the bicycle.

While traditional solutions to bicycle safety issues have focused on better road design and changes to the built environment, a few Brazilian cities have found another way to increase bicycle safety: the Internet. Collaborative websites for the cities of Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro have sprung up to help protect cyclists on the road by providing crowd sourced, up-to-the-minute data and alerts.

Bike Crimes Porto Alegre

Lucas Panitz, a geographer and researcher at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, is the creator and designer of  “Bike Crimes POA”, a collaborative tool that allows users in Porto Alegre to report road hazards, irregularities, bike thefts, and other threats to cycling safety.

Among Bike Crimes’ many features is a tool which allows users to receive immediate alerts every time a report is filed within 20 kilometers of locations they specify.

In a recent interview, Panitz described how this tool not only helps users, but will help planners gather important data as well. “It is possible to know where the accidents happen and at what time of day they occur most,” he explained, “It also helps us to know where there are problems on the bike paths and where there is the most risk for cyclists.”

Ciclista na Pista

Panitz helped to design a similar system for the city of Rio de Janeiro. This platform, called Ciclista Na Pista  (“Cyclist on the Track,”) was developed in partnership with geographer Carla Hirt, a native carioca. The idea is the same: to contribute to greater safety for bicyclists – in real time – through online reports and alerts. Both Bike Crimes and Ciclista na Pista take advantage of recent advances in open source mapping technologies and platforms, and are free to use and maintain. Both are downloadable as an app for iPhone or Android.

This post was originally published in Portuguese by Luisa Zottis for TheCityFixBrasil. To read the original, visit http://thecityfixbrasil.com/2013/06/12/plataformas-online-pela-seguranca-sobre-duas-rodas/.

Jaime Lerner is the father of Curitiba’s bus rapid transit (BRT) system and believes car culture will soon be a thing of the past. Photo by Thomas Locke Hobbs.

According to Jaime Lerner, car exhaust is the new second-hand smoke. The visionary architect, urban planner, and former mayor of Curitiba has long been outspoken about the growing social stigma around private vehicle usage. In fact, Lerner predicts that the private car will soon become a societal nuisance on par with smoking in public: “You can use it”, he says, “but people will be annoyed by you”. In a speech at last week’s III Congress: SIBRT Best Practices in Latin America, Lerner doubled down on this claim, stating that “there is no future for cities if they depend only on cars”.

Despite Lerner’s certainty, private vehicle ownership in Brazil has steadily increased in past years. According to the World Bank, there are currently 209 private vehicles per 1,000 people in Brazil, up from 164 ten years ago. Over the same period, demand for public transport has fallen 33% from 60 million passengers per day to 40 million. So what makes Lerner so confident that private vehicles will soon be shunned in favor of public transport? According to him, he’s got three main allies in the fight against car culture: increased congestion, environmental awareness, and high quality public transport.

Traffic and congestion

Imagine standing in a 50 square meter room with one person smoking a cigarette. Now imagine standing in that same room with 50 people all crammed in tight together, all smoking cigarettes, and you can’t leave. For Lerner, that might as well be the experience of being stuck in traffic: jammed in with no escape, forced to steadily breathe in exhaust fumes. But he predicts that the public backlash against increasing traffic is not far off. Though car ownership rates in Curitiba are higher than the national average, the Transportation Research Board reports that 70% of commuters there use public transport as their primary mode of transportation. The next step, says Lerner, is that these commuters won’t even buy cars in the first place. If Brazil and other cities can deliver on Lerner’s idealized view that transport users “shouldn’t have to wait more than a minute” to catch their bus or train, this shift may be happening sooner rather than later.

Environmental solidarity and the sustainable cities movement

Coupled with the everyday response to frustrating traffic and congestion is a growing sense of individual environmental responsibility. Lerner posits that there are three main issues facing cities and citizens as they interact in the world: “mobility, sustainability, and tolerance”. In order to confront these challenges, it is “crucial to have solidarity”, he says. Brazil’s environmental movement, which Lerner is credited with catalyzing, is responsible for making citizens more aware of the negative impacts of private vehicle use – poor air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, the decline of public space, and overconsumption of natural resources to name a few. According to Lerner, as long as the movement maintains solidarity, this awareness will soon translate into a shift away from private vehicle use.

Responsive and high-quality public transport

Perhaps the most crucial element of Lerner’s strategy to dismantle car culture is his goal to significantly increase the quality and responsiveness of public transport systems. Lerner conceives of a world in which transport and urbanism are inherently integrated – where transport systems are the backbone of sustainable, accessible cities. For that to happen, public transport can’t just be an option, it has to be the best option. That’s why Lerner currently serves as the honorary president of SIBRT – the association of Latin American Integrated Transport Systems and BRT – an organization dedicated to promoting best practices in bus rapid transit (BRT) and integrated transport systems, which Lerner pioneered. A quality user experience, say Lerner and SIBRT, is the key needed to coax society out of the car and into the metros, buses, and bike lanes of today’s sustainable cities.

No matter the issue, for Jaime Lerner, timing and expansive thinking are key: “Sometimes we have good ideas, but we need to start to innovate. We have to be quick in in order to avoid our own bureaucracy. … We often think in terms of problems, but what is our dream?”

Thank you to Anais Cisneros, Ryan Schleeter (EMBARQ) and Fagner Glinski (SIBRT) for their contributions to this post.

An elderly couple crosses the street hand in hand. Photo by garryknight.

Inspired by the article The Next Big Infrastructure Crisis? Age-Proofing Our Streets from The Atlantic Cities

Think back to the last time you helped an elderly person cross the street. In most cases, you’ll remember making it up and over the opposite curb with just seconds to spare before the wall of rumbling oncoming traffic got their green go-ahead signal. Now, as this memory dawns on you, have you ever stopped to think about why this always seems to happen? Well, there’s a reason.

Our Streets are Designed for Younger Legs

For a long time, it’s been assumed that people cross the street at a pace of about 4 feet per second. Crosswalks are timed using this number. However, most 80-year old people don’t move at that pace anymore. In fact, a better crosswalk speed would be one closer to 3 feet per second.

A few decades ago, this simply wasn’t something that had to be worried about. In the 1960’s, the majority of people didn’t live past 70, or 75. Today, the vast majority of the baby boom generation will age well into their 70’s and beyond. Between now and 2031, there will be 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, by which point every one in five people living in America will be older than 65. As these generations age, the demographics of entire cities will age with them.

Working to Keep Elderly Pedestrians Safe

When organizations work toward protecting vulnerable road users, their efforts benefit the elderly even if the changes weren’t developed specifically with them in mind. Since the elderly are one of the most vulnerable groups of road users, any change that is made to positively impact pedestrian safety will also automatically mean a positive change for elderly pedestrians.

A one second difference in the timer of a crosswalk might seem small, or even insignificant, but it’s become only one small piece in a much larger and deep-rooted issue. Are there benches available to stop and catch your breath? Is there a cut in the curb for a walker? Age-proofing our cities is likely to prove quite the challenge to urban design, and unfortunately in most places we’re incredibly ill-prepared.

The most decline is found in the “oldest of the old,” who don’t tend to leave their homes as often as younger people. When a bank or supermarket closes in a neighborhood, they’re the population that is affected. This has strong implications for future urban planning.

However, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab and the AARP, a nonprofit membership for people age 50 and over that is dedicated to enhancing quality of life as people age, have been able to give us a better insight and understanding than we ever have before of how elderly people get around and exactly what it is they might need. “Walking audits” of individual streets and intersections are conducted by the AARP, traveling on crutches and walkers to document uneven sidewalks or missing bus benches. The AgeLab takes it a step further, with AGNES, its Age Gain Now Empathy System suit that allows a nimble 20-something body to mimic that of someone closer to 75, and experience the strength, mobility and vision loss that comes with it.

A Benefit for One is A Benefit for All

With the data and findings from research such as this, cities can take steps toward creating more age-friendly environments for their rapidly aging populations. These changes would be beneficial to all residents, not just the elderly. Think about a curb cut-out, for example. Everyone uses it, not just people with strollers or wheelchairs. The same concept would transfer to covered bus stops, tree-lined streets, well-lit subway entrances and clearer road signs. Did you know Times Roman style is easier to read than Sans Serif?

Type face style is only one example of how a change to improve quality for one group would in fact improve quality for all groups. Taking the changing world and its demographics into consideration when planning our urban areas, and tweaking what already exists, is beneficial to everyone in the long run. After all, eventually we’ll all be old one day and find that these seemingly small issues aren’t so small to us anymore.

A family navigates the streets of Tehran, Iran’s capital city. Photo by kamshots.

Located in central Asia, with the Caspian Sea forming its northern border and the Persian Gulf to the south, Iran has been a crossroads of human civilization and transport for centuries. Soaring peaks, central basins, vast expanses of desert – not to mention susceptibility to earthquakes – have demanded ambition and ingenuity from history’s urban planners and transport authorities, who engineered such marvels as the capital city of Susa, over 6,400 years old and one of the world’s oldest urban centers; the  5th century BCE Persian Royal Road – capable of carrying a rider 1,500 miles [2,400 km] across the empire in nine days, rather than the usual 3 months required; the famed Silk Road – a trade network already over 1,200 years old by the time Marco Polo embarked upon it in the late-13th century CE.

In more recent years, Iran’s share of its population living in cities has more than doubled, growing from 28% of the nation’s total population in 1950 to 71% in 2009. This number is expected to reach 86% by the year 2050. Iranian transport experts Norman Doege and Arman Fathejalali explain the implications of this trend:

This rapid and uncontrolled urbanization of the last decades caused huge challenges for cities. Specifically environmental problems, high energy consumption and CO2 emissions, informal settlements, urban poverty, growing transport demands, and a lack of infrastructure. Moreover, the negative effects of the last decades’ car-oriented planning activities are now becoming obvious: high fatality rates, air and noise pollution, massive energy consumption, social and economic exclusion, accessibility issues, low density and segregated settlement patterns, and, quite often, deficient public transport systems.

Yet, despite these challenges, the the 8.2 million inhabitants of Tehran, Iran’s capital city, have witnessed stunning growth in sustainable transport infrastructure. Over time and with great effort, Tehran has transformed itself into an example of sustainable transport. Here are three ways the city made it happen.

1. Can you spare 10 cents?

A trip of any distance on the Tehran Metro will set you back only 1,000 Iranian Rials (about USD$0.10). That beats out the cheapest metro trips in Dehli, India (USD$0.15); Caracas, Venezuela ($0.24); and Mexico City ($0.23). Also, did we mention that seniors ride free? The equitability of the Tehran Metro is reflected in the nearly 2 million passengers that use it every day, and the 459 million riders yearly.

A ride on the city bus, meanwhile, costs around 200 Rials (USD$0.02), although Lonely Planet cautions non-Farsi speaking travelers that, “buses never show their destinations in English and numbering is inconsistent.” Most travelers, however, are pointed in the right direction by bus drivers and station managers.

2. Natural gas-powered

Iran leads the world in having the largest fleet of natural gas-powered vehicles on its roads – currently numbering around 2.86 million. The number of natural gas fueling stations is predicted to increase to more than 3,000 in 2013. While this may seem odd for an oil-rich nation which produces over 4.23 million barrels of oil per day and sits atop the world’s 5th largest oil reserves, Iran has very few domestic refineries to turn crude oil into gasoline or diesel. Moreover, this OPEC giant also happens to contain the world’s second largest proved reserves of natural gas, after Russia. With international sanctions driving up oil prices, Tehran commuters like Sasan Ahmadi, who own natural gas vehicles, can still get to work on less than a penny (USD$0.01) per mile under current government subsidies.

Key policy drivers, explains the Natural Gas Vehicle Association, “ are much the same [in Iran] as elsewhere in the world – economic savings and energy security with environmental gains providing an additional fringe benefit.”

3. International recognition

The city of Tehran came in as a runner-up at the 2011 Sustainable Transport Awards, organized by the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP). In terms of transport policy, the city of Tehran has set itself apart from its peers in the region, implementing aggressive traffic-control policies and promoting the use of public transport modes, such as bus rapid transit, metro, and the MetroBike bike-sharing system, which debuted in 2009.

According to the award citation:

“Tehran is also one of the few cities in the world to implement a congestion charge. Their congestion charging system builds on what had been a “restricted zone” in central Tehran. In July 2010, Tehran instituted a congestion charging system, using camera-based license plate recognition technology to monitor and enforce. Drivers are required to buy a pass (available annually, weekly or daily) in order to enter the charging zone. Exemptions are made for emergency vehicles, diplomatic vehicles, public vehicles including buses and taxis.”

Since then, the city has continued to improve its transport infrastructure, expanding its bus rapid transit (BRT) system coverage and integrating fare systems between bus and rail services. Which leaves TheCityFix wondering, what else don’t we know about sustainable transport in Iran?

Iranian natives and world travelers: do you know something we don’t? Leave us a comment and start the conversation!

2013 STA winner Mexico City impressed the committee with its extensive BRT system, Metrobús. Photo by ITDP.

EMBARQ, together with the rest of the Sustainable Transport Award (STA) Committee, invites you to nominate your city for the 10th Annual Sustainable Transport Award. Nominations open on Monday June 17th and will be accepted online until September 13th, 2013. More info and nomination form here.

The award

Established in 2005, the Sustainable Transport Award recognizes profound leadership and vision in sustainable transportation and urban livability, and is presented to a city each January for achievements in the preceding year. Nominations are accepted from any interested parties, including government, non-profit/NGOs, community groups, academic institutions, who have a working knowledge of the city’s projects and can provide verifiable data and contact information for the city.

The award is given each year to a city or major jurisdiction that has is implementing innovative transportation strategies. These strategies should improve mobility for all residents, reduce transportation greenhouse and air pollution emissions, and improve safety and access for bicyclists and pedestrians.

The selection committee

The STA Committee includes the most respected experts and organizations working internationally on sustainable transportation. Committee members are:

• Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP)

• EMBARQ at the World Resources Institute

• GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit)

• Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities Center (CAI-Asia)

• Transportation Research Board Committee on Transportation in Developing Countries

• Clean Air Institute for Latin America

• United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD)

• Transport Research Laboratory

The award winner and honorable mentions will officially be announced at an evening reception at the Transportation Research Board’s Annual Conference in January 2014. Finalists will be notified by November 2013.

Last year’s winner

Last year’s winner, Mexico City, implemented many projects in 2012 that have improved livability, mobility, and quality of life for its citizens, making the Mexican capital a best practice for Latin America. The city expanded its BRT system, Metrobus, piloted a comprehensive on-street parking reform program (ecoParq), expanded its successful public bike system (Ecobici), and revitalized public spaces such as Alameda Central and Plaza Tlaxcoaque.

For more details on the Sustainable Transport Awards, and to nominate your city or any city, visit staward.org, or contact Jemilah Magnusson, Communications Manager at ITDP.