Overview
Encouraging intermodal door-to-door transport solutions for passenger
travel in urban areas calls for grouping together individual measures in
order to improve their acceptance among the public. Cities are interested
in increasing the level of car restraint in central areas and this calls
for interchanges and public transport products such as integrated
ticketing to provide viable alternatives to the car. In hinterland areas,
where the population density is often insufficient to support a supply of
fixed-schedule, fixed-route public transport, services need to be
organised that enable travellers to efficiently interconnect with the
public transport network. The integration of linkage services such as
park&ride, PT+taxi, PT+car sharing, helps to provide an effective
intermodal door-to-door alternative to the car in such cases.
The main project aim was to develop, integrate and demonstrate in three sites (Barcelona, Bremen and Bristol) a series of measures based on integrated transport telematics applications to support strategies for promoting passenger intermodality in urban areas.
Specific aims of the project were to assess travel behaviour, user acceptance and implementation for the following schemes:
- integration of the original public transport trip planner with parking guidance information, multi-modal P&R ticketing, and video-based automated access control in Barcelona;
- integration of the original public transport trip planner with car sharing and taxi information, electronic ticketing for public transport, profile-based taxi dispatching, and electronic booking of car sharing in Bremen;
- bus trip planner and electronic road pricing with variable user charging in Bristol.
Funding
Results
Main results from the assessments of travel behaviour have been:
- reductions of up to 10% in car use have been achieved as a result of the application of the integrated measures;
- higher increase in multi-stage public transport mode share has been achieved where the initial multi-modal share involving public transport was lower (4.6% increase from 2.3% to 6.9% in Bristol compared to 3.6% increase from 36.3% to 39.8% in Bremen);
- results in Bristol showed that also ride sharing and walking mode were promoted and that the reduction in car usage achieved for the trip planner sub-sample (less 5% car) was improved when this “carrot” is combined with the “stick” of road pricing (less 12.8% car);
- the Bristol trial of electronic road pricing has demonstrated a significant spreading outside the two-hour morning peak when charging only during the peak;
- respondents stating that the trip planner has helped them use a better public transport service ranged between 8% and 10% in Bremen and Bristol and new public transport trips were found as a result of new trip planner up to 7% of the participants (in the same cities).
Main results from the assessments of user acceptance and implementation have been:
- the internet-based public transport trip planner, developed to a common specification in the three sites, showed high levels of acceptance with those stating that they would either definitely or probably use this application in the future ranging between 70% and 90%;
- the intermodal trip planner in Bremen was developed to supply graphically address-based solutions while the intermodal trip planner in Barcelona offers park&ride, public transport and car travel times and costs side-by-side for a specified journey; the travel times are generally lower for car option than for public transport and the respondents agreed and disagreed in equal numbers to the statement that personalised information about road congestion could tend to promote car use;
- the digital video in Barcelona proved to be able to automatically record the level of illegal entries in the restricted access area;
- bookings of the “Cambio” car sharing in Bremen handled by the internet accounted for 10% of total;
- the taxi dispatching system in Bremen based on GPS location and smart cards recording taxi information showed significant improvements
Policy implications
INTERCEPT results offer guidance on how to improve public transport information and realise service linkages and restraint measures so as to make the alternatives to car usage as attractive as possible. Exploitation lines of the public transport trip planner applications concern the extension of the geographical area covered and the integration of interactive walking/cycling elements. Integration with car travel information service should be contemplated because this would offer the advantage of convincing car-orientated travellers to select attractive alternatives and have the potential for using revenues from car traveller information services to fund intermodal travel planners. The increased confidence in video as an enforcement technology could be exploited for both safety and environmental objectives as shown by the plans for enforcement of red lights and clean zones in Barcelona.
Passenger
Guidance on how to improve public transport information and realise service linkages and restraint measures so as to make the alternatives to car usage as attractive as possible.
Urban
Encouraging intermodal door-to-door transport solutions for passenger travel in urban areas calls for grouping together individual measures in order to improve their acceptance among the public. Cities are interested in increasing the level of car restraint in central areas and this calls for interchanges and public transport products such as integrated ticketing to provide viable alternatives to the car. Sample characteristics depend upon the method of recruitment and the geographic coverage of the trial.
The most extensive trial was of a prototype Intermodal Trip Planner (ITP) covering 57 of the 163 municipalities of metropolitan Barcelona. The recruited sample had the longest av. trip lengths (31km) and lowest use of the Internet (20%) – comparative descriptors for the other sites being 10-20km and 50% Internet use (Bristol) and 10km and 90% Internet use (Bremen). Panel deterioration in Barcelona meant that impacts were achieved only for the Park&ride ticketing measures (a 7% switch from car to park&ride was retrospectively declared by respondents).
The Bremen demonstration of ITP linked the cambio car-share and Taxi Ruf Bremen taxi webs to the public transport servers - showing solutions for combined modes using vecto