Study on integration of proposed public bus route network with BRT and MRT system in Dhaka city

Abstract

The public transportation system greatly influences the total effectiveness of any city's transportation system. A well-developed public transportation infrastructure can aid the economic growth of a city. Public buses offer a flexible mode of public transportation that can accommodate a range of needy individuals across the metropolis. Congestion, poor traffic management, high accident rates, and a growing pollution issue, however, are depicted public bus service scenario in Dhaka's. Earlier in Dhaka public buses are Dhaka's only means of mass transportation, many people rely on them every day, but in recent days MRT is also included. The study focuses on the integration of various public transit network in Dhaka city. In Dhaka along with existing bus route network, several transit projects are taken such as MRT 1, 6, 5 and BRT 3. These transit projects have their own operation plans. However, none of them mentioned about integration with other transit services. Following this, this study attempted to work on the integration aspect of transit services considering their designed operational characteristics. Based on this, the study has three major objectives. In the first objective the study tried to review the ongoing and proposed transit projects following their operational and network characteristics, after that, in the second objective the traffic impact of rationalized bus route network on BRT and MRT corridor has been studied. Following these, on the third objective an integrated transit network system has been developed considering their operational aspects. To pursue the activities for achieving first objective, the operation plans of different services have been reviewed and discussed along with this, the network overlapping ratio following intra and inter network are studied. Apart from this, using the network analyst tool of ArcGIS, service areas around transit stops are developed and the access road density and structure density are studied. However, in case of second objective, following the overlapping ratio of rationalized bus routes along with BRT and MRT services, the bus routes were grouped into different categories. After that, based on their fleet distribution the transit traffic impacts of BRT, MRT corridors was analyzed. Following this, buffer areas around transit corridors were developed and the distribution of different land use categories within these areas were studied. Lastly, on the third objective, a macro simulation model using future (year 2035) peak hour transit travel demand matrix has been developed, on which different transit network combinations have been studied and the traffic impact of integration on networks are studied. As a part of the study, it has been found out, that, the accessibility rationalized network is better than the existing one. Along with this, the existing network has higher overlapping ratio (both intra and inter) than rationalized one. Apart from this, following the coverage issue, rationalized network has better spatial coverage than existing one. Moreover, around the BRT and MRT lines, there is a greater concentration of mixed-use, residential, and industrial land use than there is of other land uses. However, owing to their alignment, MRT 6 and MRT 1 also have high percentages of vacant lands. In case of macro-simulation model, first scenario developed considering only existing bus routes (base scenario), and on this scenario the number of transit trips is the highest among all scenarios. The trip number stays nearly the same as the basic one when considering current bus routes that connect to MRT lines 1, 5, and 6. Although there are significant operational speed, transfer fee, and per-kilometer fare differences between the MRT system and bus, transit users still favor both in a comparable way, and the load factor value of 2.12 makes this the best fit scenario. However, the alignment plan of the rationalized routes caused the network of bus routes to receive 93% fewer trips than the current bus route network. Along with this, while considering BRT network with rationalized bus routes, it seems that, the transit trip number from rationalized base scenario increased by 43%, and with MRT it increased by 81%, and with both MRT and BRT, the value increased by 93%. To conclude, it can be said that, although the current network has operational and functional limitations, it still serves the purpose better when considering fleet alignments and distribution.