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Report n°6: Urban Public Transport

How to attract new users?

In the urban public transport profession, as has already been mentioned, one of the disputed points is related to the attractiveness of BRT with exclusive right-of-way compared to the tramline model (i.e. rail equipment). To consider this question objectively, one must be able to include into the equation the response of users to the rare instances of BRT with exclusive right-of-way in France, leaving out any consideration of dedicated bus lanes with varying degrees of protection and continuity. The most remarkable of them have already been mentioned above: Dijon, the first of them all, with integration into a vast operation to make the city centre pedestrian; plus two other projects, one heavy in Montpellier, mentioned above and the other rather lighter weight by a renovation of public space in the crossing of Orleans city centre. In both these cases, the right-of-way for buses preceded the tram which had been planned for quite some time. Finally, the long north-south route in Grenoble served by line 1, already mentioned above, is a more recent example. Apart from these projects, there are also some shorter common trunks which gave public transport the opportunity to disengage from areas notable for the slowness of road traffic, as is the case in several medium sized towns.

In Rouen, the most complete project to date, the public transport network was the subject of customer satisfaction surveys. The latest of these in 2001 provides an opportunity to compare the replies given by users depending on the kind of transport: the "metro", (i.e. the tram), the BRT with exclusive right-of-way (TEOR) and the other bus lines. The table below lists some of the questions put to users.

Table 12. Rouen network users customer satisfaction survey

Users' appreciation... Marked 0 to 20.

"Metro"

TEOR

Other bus lines

Network globally

speed 16,5 15,8

14,9

 15,6
frequency 15,5 15,4 13,6 14,4
regularity 15,8 14,9 14 14,7
comfort 13,8 14,2 13,7 13,6
driving skill 14,8 14,6 13,4 14
stations 14,3 13,8 13,4 13,7
accessibility (physical) 14,3 15 14,1 14,2
information at the station 15,2 15,2 15 15,1
information in case of incidents 13,8 13 12,6 13,1
price 13,2 13,1 13,3 13,3

As shown a contrario by the reply on an absolutely identical component over the whole network, i.e. the price, for which the satisfaction appreciation varied by only 13.1 to 13.3, replies regarding the transport mode do seem to reflect the characteristics of each one of them. As regards the tram, habit would seem to have attenuated the novelty effect, whereas TEOR, which was not even entirely operational at the time, did benefit indisputably from the novelty effect in 2001.

The average for the transport's three fundamental performance criteria, providing quantitative information on the offer (speed and frequency) and on presentation to the public (regularity), showed the following results: the tram's average mark is 15.9, TEOR's is 15.4 and for the other lines the figure is 14.2. The differential is rather small (0.5) between TEOR and the tram, with the tram getting the higher appreciation, but the difference between the tram and TEOR is smaller than between TEOR and the other bus lines of the network (1.2 points) thanks, inter alia, to the efforts in favour of frequency. (The impact of the common trunk of the right-of-way probably influenced that parameter).

The other dimension of the right-of-way impact is the quality of service given to users (comfort on board, smooth drive, stations, information, etc.). The average mark given by users is 14.4 for the tram, 14.3 for TEOR and only 13.7 for the other bus lines. On the various indicators of quality lumped together, the difference is inconsequential (0.1 point), but the difference is greater compared with the bus lines: 0.6 points difference. (Despite this clear difference, it must be noted that the difference between the buses and TEOR was 1.2 points for the quantitative dimension of the comparison).