moving beyond cost: evaluating lrt & brt options in australian & nz cities
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MOVING BEYOND COST EVALUATING LRT AND BRT OPTIONS FOR AUSTRALIAN AND NZ CITIES
Sco% Mar)n
¡ Capital costs differences between Light Rail Transit (LRT) & Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) less than expected
¡ Transit performance and productivity are important! Many LRT & BRT systems are underperformers
¡ Other factors also matter in selection of LRT & BRT, particularly the transport policy environment
Why you should stay
¡ More than $7 billion spent on road-based PT in Australian and NZ cities since 1987
¡ Over $5 billion spent on LRT & BRT projects between 2000 and 2010 alone
Why is this research important?
¡ Over $4.5 billion of new or expanded LRT projects are underway or proposed for Australian cities
¡ New LRT systems committed for construction in Australian cities include:
The 2010s – the decade of Light Rail?
Gold Coast
Canberra
Sydney
Perth
Newcastle
¡ Medium-capacity, public transport solutions for cities
¡ Deliverable at affordable price points
¡ With a range of urban transport & land-use benefits
Why choose LRT or BRT?
¡ Capacity between 4,000 & 24,000 spaces per hour
¡ Operates on separated Rights-of-Way (ROW), reduced interaction with other road traffic
¡ Stop spacing 300-600 metres in CBDs: more widely spaced elsewhere
¡ ITS gives signal priority, network monitoring & passenger information
Defining LRT & BRT
¡ This definition excludes most of Melbourne’s street tramway system
Defining LRT & BRT
¡ And many street bus systems ‘improved’ with bus priority treatments
Defining LRT & BRT
¡ 28 LRT & BRT projects were selected for the reference set
¡ Per-kilometre capital costs range from $450M/km (high) to $5.8M/km (low)
A ‘reference set’ of project costs
Project Name Length (km) Sta)ons/Stops Completed Cost ($M) Cost $M
(2013) Cost per km $M
(2013) Eastern Busway Stage 1 (Buranda-‐Coorparoo) 1.1 4 2011 $465.0 $494.9 $449.9
Inner Northern Busway (KG Square -‐ Roma St) 1.3 2 2008 $333.0 $395.1 $316.1
Northern Busway Stage 2 (Herston -‐ Windsor) 1.2 1 2009 $198.0 $225.7 $188.1
Boggo Road Busway (UQ Lakes-‐Buranda) 1.5 2 2009 $226.0 $257.6 $171.7
Northern Busway Stage 3 (Windsor-‐Kedron) 3.0 2 2012 $444.0 $453.6 $151.2
Gold Coast Light Rail 13.0 16 2014 $1,296.0 $1,296.0 $99.7
Northern Busway Stage 1 (Roma St -‐ Herston) 2.8 3 2005 $148.4 $218.2 $77.9 South-‐East Busway 16.5 11 2001 $660.0 $1,097.2 $66.5 Sydney Inner West Light Rail Extension 5.6 9 2014 $214.0 $214.0 $38.2 Auckland Northern Busway 8.7 5 2008 $256.2 $295.5 $34.0 Sydney Light Rail 3.6 10 1997 $65.0 $118.8 $33.0 M2 Motorway Busway 7.0 2.0 1997 $110.0 $201.1 $28.7 North West Transitway 24.0 30 2007 $524.0 $672.0 $28.0 Port Road Tram extension 2.8 4 2010 $53.0 $53.0 $18.9 Liverpool-‐Parrama%a Transitway 30.0 31 2003 $346.0 $532.8 $17.8 Adelaide O-‐Bahn 12.0 3 1989 $98.0 $197.6 $16.5 Box Hill tram extension 2.2 5 2003 $28.0 $35.2 $16.0 Adelaide CBD tram extension 2.1 5 2008 $31.0 $33.6 $16.0 Vermont South tram extension 3.0 5 2005 $30.5 $36.5 $12.2 Kwinana Freeway Bus Transitway 5.9 1 2002 $44.2 $67.0 $11.4 Plenty Road Tram Extension Stage 4 (McLeans Road -‐ McKimmies Road) 2.1 4 1995 $12.6 $23.0 $11.0
Docklands Drive tram extension 1.0 5 2005 $7.5 $9.0 $9.0 Sydney Light Rail Extension 3.6 4 2000 $20.0 $32.3 $9.0 Plenty Road Tram Extension Stage 3 (La Trobe University -‐ McLeans Road) 3.2 7 1987 $10.8 $27.9 $8.7
Airport West Tram Extension 1.2 3 1992 $4.5 $9.1 $7.6 St Kilda Light Rail 4.2 8 1987 $27.9 $27.9 $6.6 East Burwood Tram 2.0 4 1993 $6.5 $12.8 $6.4 Port Melbourne Light Rail 2.8 6 1987 $16.3 $16.3 $5.8
TOTAL ALL PROJECTS $7,053.6
¡ Gold Coast - $1.3B for a new-build LRT system
¡ Brisbane – Over $3.1B on 28.6 km BRT network
¡ Sydney - $1.2B for western Sydney BRT & $365M for LRT conversion
¡ Melbourne - $198M for 22 km of LRT extensions/conversions over 20 years
Or puUng it another way…
¡ For 18 key LRT & BRT projects, use public timetables to develop productive capacity values for:
¡ Average operating speeds
¡ Peak direction passenger spaces per hour
¡ Use capital cost data with productive capacity data to develop a productivity measure for all 18 projects
Defining performance measures
Findings
Finding #1 – Capital costs
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
Hass-Klau et al (2003) Zhang (2009) Luke (2006) Hess, Taylor & Yoh (2005)
Martin (2013)
Cos
t per
mile
/kilo
met
re
(in M
illio
ns o
f USD
, AU
D o
r GB
P)
Difference between per-kilometre BRT & LRT capital costs (based on US, UK, European & ANZ meta-analyses)
BRT LRT
LRT in US, UK & Europe costs around 2.6 times more than BRT
In Australia & NZ, LRT costs around 1.7 times more than BRT
Finding #2 – Transit performance maXers!
§ 3 high performing BRT projects moving 2500-5000 pph
§ 7 well performing LRT & BRT projects moving 2000-3800 pph
§ 8 under performing LRT & BRT projects moving under 2000 pph
Finding #3 – So does transit produc[vity!
AOB
SEB INB1
INB2
BNB2 BNB2
ANB
LPB
RHB BPB
M2B
BRB
BEB1
ADL
SKL
PML
SYL
GCL
$1
$10
$100
$1,000
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Capital cost p
er km (2
013 A$
Millions)
Produc[ve capacity (offered spaces x average opera[ng speed) '000s
Street transit Semirapid transit
Rapid transit
§ 6 highly productive LRT & BRT projects with capital costs between $7M & $317M per km
§ 12 less productive projects costing between $6M and $450M per km
Finding #4 – Are all the good corridors built out?
¡ The answers seems to be ‘yes’
¡ Lack of good corridors have real impacts
¡ Opportunities from ‘recycling’ existing corridors?
¡ Political, ideological & economic imperatives
¡ What are the ‘peer cities’ doing?
¡ Land use policy & planning environment
¡ Prevailing road management policies & plans
¡ Integration of new systems with existing PT network
¡ Preferred selection & evaluation methods
Finding #5 – Don’t ignore policy factors!
¡ Evaluating LRT & BRT projects against capital cost & performance data provides valuable insights
¡ Are LRT & BRT projects in Australian & NZ cities operating below their productive capacity?
¡ Is upgrading existing tram & bus systems to improve performance better than building LRT or BRT?
Conclusions
Ques[ons?