Getting the bus to work : why quality bus corridors work in Dublin
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Loughborough University
Institutional Repository
Getting the bus to work :
why quality bus corridors
work in Dublin
This item was submitted to Loughborough University’s Institutional Repository
by the/an author.
Citation: ENOCH, M.P., 2003. Getting the bus to work : why quality bus
corridors work in Dublin. Traffic engineering and control, 44 (7), pp. 252-254
Additional Information:
• This is a journal article. It was published in the journal, Traffic and
control engineering [ c Hemming Group Ltd] and is also available from:
http://www.tecmagazine.com/
Metadata Record: https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/3414
Publisher: c Hemming Group Ltd
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This item was submitted to Loughborough’s Institutional Repository by the
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TEC.07.03 p252-254 7/24/03 4:58 PM Page 252
252 Putting the bus first
Getting the bus to
work: why quality bus
corridors work in Dublin
Dublin has achieved a remarkable increase in bus patronage through the introduction of
quality bus corridors. Marcus Enoch reports on Dublin’s success which is founded on
properly implemented bus lanes. He concludes that the key to persauding car users to
switch to the bus is that the bus journey time must be consistently and significantly less
than that taken by car.
ersuading people to use public could be explained by the booming possibly through the provision of new
P transport instead of their cars has
long been seen as a key compo-
nent of any sustainable transport policy
economy. Bluntly, buses are perceived
as being the ‘mode of last resort’ by the
vast majority of people, and especially
bus shelters, real-time passenger infor-
mation and bus priority measures.
While significant advances have
approach. The Government’s Ten Year by those with access to a car. been made in terms of patronage in-
Plan is no exception, requiring public On the other hand, buses currently creases in a few cases, most notably by
transport use to increase significantly perform two-thirds of all passenger Trent Buses in the East Midlands and
over the period until 2010. journeys in the UK. And there are ex- Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach
To do this, the plan relies on the rail amples of towns and cities where bus Company, in general patronage gains
sector to deliver a 50% increase in pas- use has increased, bucking the national have been fairly moderate. However,
sengers, while the bus industry’s target downward trend. even in the Trent and Brighton cases,
is a more modest 10%. However, since One reason for this, has been the progress has been threatened because
the adoption of the plan, the railway emergence of the concept of Quality increasing levels of congestion are dra-
system has degenerated into turmoil Bus Partnerships. QBPs were developed matically reducing the reliability of the
Meanwhile light rail schemes will only to address the problem caused by the bus service offered. In other words, the
ever be viable for a very few corridors in 1985 Transport Act, which separated bus priority measures typically offered
a very few cities. Thus, in the short bus operations from the infrastructure. at the moment by local authorities are
term, the humble bus represents the In essence, the bus operator pledges to not up to the task.
only realistic hope of the Government’s upgrade its bus service – generally by One solution to this problem is to
targets being met. buying new state-of-the-art vehicles, implement a network of guided
This is a tall order. Although bus pa- improving frequencies and training dri- busways, specifically designed to bypass
tronage levels have remained stable vers in customer care techniques. In re- the worst pinch points, and this is the
over the past decade or so after a steady turn, the local authority offers to up- option favoured by public transport au-
decline since the 1950s, much of this grade infrastructure along the route, thorities and providers in West York-
shirel.
Dublin Bus claim Another less publicised approach is
that commuters in place across the Irish Sea in Dublin.
no longer run for a
bus during the THE DUBLIN QBCS
peak period
because they can
During the 1990s, with economic
usually see the
growth of around 10% a year, Dublin
next one.
was facing worsening levels of traffic
congestion. This led in 1994 to the pub-
lication of the Dublin Transportation
Initiative – the first integrated study of
transport in the city – which in turn re-
sulted in a virtual halt to urban road
building (although the C-ring, the M50
motorway around the city was given
tec JULY/AUGUST 2003TEC.07.03 p252-254 7/24/03 4:58 PM Page 253
253
the go ahead), three LRT lines (now
two) and a number of so-called Quality
Bus Corridors – 10-11 radial routes, and
one orbital.
The goal of the Quality Bus Corridor
(QBC) is ‘to provide a clearly defined,
high performance bus transportation
system segregated from other traffic’. In
practical terms, the aim is to deliver bus
journey speeds on the corridor of at
least 20km/hr, with a minimum in-
crease in bus journey speeds of 25% on
all corridors. Buses must be segregated
from other traffic along the complete
length of the corridor, except where the for loading between 10am-12noon and the downside of this reliability is that QBC’s which have
road width is too narrow to provide a others are 24 hours. the peak has sharpened as a conse- not been as
bus lane. In addition, it is aimed to pro- Initially the Irish National Road Au- quence meaning more buses are re- successful are
vide high quality waiting areas with thority was against the QBC concept. quired – roughly 80 buses now serve the those that do not
real-time passenger information Thus when Dublin Bus officials sent corridor over the period. On the posi- have close to
throughout, while buses will have an drawings of bus lanes to the NRA, they tive side, outbound commuting too has
100%
average age of only five years, be acces- were sent back with the lanes crossed strongly increased. And, large numbers
segregation, have
sible to mobility impaired people, be out. The main problem was that the of buses using the lanes helps justify
unfavourable
distinct in appearance from other buses NRA did not want to lose junction ca- their implementation – on some lanes
demographics or
and be air conditioned. Finally, average pacity. Interestingly neither did Dublin there are as many bus passengers as car
waiting times for passengers were set at Bus – lost junction capacity slows down occupants. Buses are perceived to be so
are simply too
three minutes during the peak and four buses. Instead, the bus company did its frequent that drivers even drop their short to generate
minutes in the off-peak, with an aver- own evaluation and then asked a con- families off at bus stops. a sufficient
age excess wait of two minutes allowed. sultant to work out the details. In the There are though, a number of prob- journey time
As of late 2002, 98 km of bus lanes event, the proposal from the consultant lems. In particular, worsening conges- differential with
forming nine QBCs are in place, and was not radical enough about where to tion on road sections once buses leave the car.
three remain to be developed – Orbital, put the bus lanes, and had to redrafted the main bus-laned corridors has im-
South Clondalkin and Ballymun. The to be more ambitious! pacted on reliability. Discussions are
results are impressive. In total, bus use In terms of the throughput of people ongoing with local councils to try and
in the morning peak (07:00-09:15 Mon- in the corridor as a whole, where QBCs improve accessibility to various places
day to Friday) inbound services has in- have been introduced, some have in- through bus only roads/gateways in cer-
creased by 38%, from 138,500 to creased throughput by 20%. The bal- tain locations.
191,500 since 1997, while on the Stil- ance that needs to be struck is between Other than that it is in the marketing
lorgan QBC, patronage rose by 232%! providing the infrastructure and using area where the difficulties arise. This is
Further, cordon counts on the ‘canal it enough. In the case of the QBCs, partly due to the complex route net-
ring’ of traffic entering the city show Dublin Bus estimates that around 20 work which makes operational plan-
that the modal share of the bus in- buses an hour are needed to justify bus ning complicated too – although the
creased from 36.8% in 1997 to 40.5% in lane infrastructure. system does work from the provider
2001. These counts also showed that QBCs have been implemented in a point of view. Two related issues are
some 60%-65% of new bus users had wide range of area types. For example, that while branding buses as QBC buses
switched from the car. the Malahide Road QBC already had was tried, it was found to be inefficient
Altogether, the QBCs cost e57m for high usage with a bus modal share of and difficult to maintain, and has there-
98km to implement, or € 575,000 per over 40% prior to the QBC being intro- fore been abandoned. The provision of
km. While installing the lanes was rela- duced. However, the QBC upped this to information too remains poor, and al-
tively cheap, the cost of providing traf- over 50% by providing a bus every 35- though there is a high proportion of
fic signal improvements, additional 40 seconds in the peak. pre-paid tickets (35%), cash fares re-
cycle lanes and a whole raft of ‘village By contrast, the Stillorgan QBC serves quire an exact fare which while good
improvements’ – necessary for gaining what should be classic non-bus operat- for boarding times can be annoying for
local approval of the process – were ing territory, where residents have high the passenger – especially where infor-
more costly. The QBCs were mainly incomes and high car ownership levels. mation is difficult to understand. There
funded through European Regional De- Here, the heavily congested corridor is also a perception that there is a lack of
velopment Funding and Traffic Man- meant that within six weeks patronage integrated tickets, although this is not
agement Grants from the DTO. had increased dramatically – from the case.
In practice, Dublin Bus claims that 10,000 passengers to 25,000, between The lessons from the QBC policy are
commuters no longer run for a bus dur- 07:00-09:14 Monday to Friday in the simple. If car users are to be persuaded
ing the peak period because they can peak flow direction only. This was al- to switch to using the bus, then there
usually see the next one – frequencies most entirely due to the bus consis- must be a tangible benefit. In short, the
average 90 seconds. In the off-peak, fre- tently taking only 30 minutes com- journey time taken by bus must consis-
quencies are closer to ten minutes, al- pared to a car journey time of 50 min- tently be significantly less than that
though sometimes passengers can be utes. taken by car. As a consequence, conges-
caught out. Meanwhile most of the Indeed, customers with a 09:00 start tion is seen as the ally of the bus – at
lanes operate 7am to 7pm (which when they first took the bus set off 75 least on the segregated sections of the
matches the parking time limits across minutes early, but after a few weeks set QBCs.
the city), although some have windows off only 35 minutes earlier. Of course For this to apply, the bus lanes must
tec JULY/AUGUST 2003TEC.07.03 p252-254 7/24/03 4:58 PM Page 254
254 Putting the bus first
Table 1: QBC Launch QBC Total Inbound Time Journey Survey Time Bus Bus Increase
Based on Dublin
Date length Route am peak Saving Time Bus Saving Journey Patronage In
Transportation
(km) Length scheduled Over Survey Journey Over Survey Speed Over Survey Patronage
Office (2002).
of run time Route Length Time Distance Over Survey Distance Over Survey
Service pre-QBC Since QBC (km) QBC Distance Before Before Distance
(km) (mins) (mins) (mins) (mins) (km/hr) QBC (%)
Stillorgan Aug-99 12.9 17.3 75 15 11.1 41 11 21.9 9769 232
Malahide Dec-98 7.5 12.5 55 5 6.5 26 8 21.75 22018 27
Finglas Jul-00 6 11.2 45 10 5.2 18 3 19.78 8928 0.5
Lucan Jul-96 12.1 17.8 60 -10 11.1 45 9 18.65 16328 36
Rathfarnham Mar-01 7.1 12 60 0 7.4 54 30 18.25 10786 37
Tallaght Apr-01 12.2 15.7 80 0 11.1 44 6 17.47 18916 19
N. Clondalkin Feb-01 12.1 14.1 55 0 8.7 43 8 14.96 14723 -2
Swords Nov-01 11.7 14.9 60 5 4.8 25 4 13.48 16829 17
Blanchardstown Sep-01 16.4 19.2 60 -20 8.4 24 – 21 20383 39
be as continuous as possible. Four kilo- street it will now seek to introduce a bus lanes. However, unless one actually
metres of bus lanes on a six kilometre lane in one direction for the whole searches for the QBCs it is very difficult
route is of limited value if congestion length of the link. Previously, Dublin to tell that they are there. This is be-
will still interfere with reliability and Bus would have introduced a lane in cause the buses and stops used are
journey times in the remaining two one direction and a lane in the other di- branded in the standard corporate liv-
kilometre stretch. Pre-signal traffic rection both for only half the length of ery, there are virtually no adverts – even
management is helpful too, as is active the link. on shelters or on the buses themselves –
bus management. To this end, Dublin A further change on the cards is that and the lanes themselves are black as-
Bus injects spare buses into routes Ministers are keen to see more competi- phalt rather than pigmented green as in
where necessary to better match de- tion in the bus market, although this is Edinburgh for example. Further, the in-
mand. Finally, extremely frequent buses more likely to follow the Scandinavian formation for the services is not easy to
are highly visible to car users and along route franchising model than that understand, and the use of the exact
with the continuous nature of the lanes adopted in Great Britain outside Lon- fare system is off putting – although a
(which makes it very difficult for traffic don. key component in reducing bus board-
to re-merge into the general purpose ing times and hence overall journey
lane) helps negate the need for police or times.
camera enforcement although there
LESSONS FOR THE UK Such a revelation is actually rather
was an initial presence at the launch. positive for the future of the bus indus-
Beyond the bus sector, recent In transferring such experience to the try as a whole, as it would appear that
changes in parking policy have helped. UK, it is clear that the major advantage no urban area in the British Isles has yet
While there was a severe over supply of the bus company in Dublin is that it tried matching a Trent Buses-style mar-
during the 1980s and 1990s, this is now is part of the same organisation as the keting strategy with a Dublin Bus-style
being redressed and high parking transport planners and therefore bus lane solution. Given the almost
charges often form an important push ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’. 40% increase in bus use just from prop-
for people to change to the bus. This is not the case in Britain where erly implementing bus lanes, one could
QBCs that have not been as success- local authorities are sometimes distrust- only imagine what results that ap-
ful are those that do not have close to ful of bus operators that are seeking to proach would achieve.
100% segregation, have unfavourable maximise profits, although the devel-
demographics or are simply too short to opment of QBPs should have gone Acknowledgements
generate a sufficient journey time dif- some way to addressing this issue. Thanks are due to Derry O’Leary of
ferential with the car. Related to this, is that the core objec- Dublin Bus, and Marion Wilson of the
For the future there are plans to try tive of the Dublin QBCs is to reduce Dublin Transportation Office for all
and introduce orbital QBCs to match peak period congestion, and hence the their help.
changing travel demand patterns. size of the vehicle fleet, the cost of pro-
There is also a move to introduce more viding that and the level of public sub- Footnotes
cross city routes. This was impossible sidy has risen as a result. This may be a 1. Bain R (2002) Kerb guided bus: is this
until recently due to high levels of city significant barrier in the UK context, al- affordable LRT?, Traffic Engineering
centre congestion with no scope for bus though bus companies are already and Control, February, pp.51-55.
lanes. But, a series of low-profile traffic being forced to supply more buses in 2. Roughly 40% of traffic on O’Connell
management measures preventing cars peak periods due to units being trapped Street, the main street in the city was
and lorries from entering certain streets in congestion. through traffic before the traffic man-
or making certain turning movements, Otherwise, neither the transport agement measures.
has now discouraged some through problems nor the transport institu-
traffic2 and transformed a 15-minute tional set up are sufficiently different to About the author
trip across town to a five minute one. prevent a UK council following the Dr Marcus Enoch is a lecturer in transport
And, more alterations are planned. Dublin example. studies at Loughborough University, a
Meanwhile Dublin Bus is now look- While the results of the Dublin QBC visiting research fellow at The Open
ing to be still more radical in where it experience are truly impressive, what is University and a freelance journalist. He
puts bus lanes. And, if space permits extraordinary is that these have been can be contacted by email at
only a single bus lane in a two-way gained almost exclusively due to the m.p.enoch@lboro.ac.uk.
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