Hybrid Bus and BRT

[douglasrac]

This is for those who told me once that hybrid vehicles are merely for marketing purposes and nobody uses them in real life. Curitiba is implementing hybrid buses in their fleet. This is of course not only due to ecological matters, but economical. The hybrid buses consumes 35% less fuel compared to a similar vehicle that operates only with diesel. Also the diesel used is already biodiesel.

More information: http://curitibainenglish.com.br/gov...tiba-unveils-hybrid-bus-at-rio-20-conference/

Plus, the Curitiba system is a very good source if you want inspiration for BRT system. I also proposed several times a color system in CiM based on this, but also nobody saw any use for it.
The BRT system in Curitiba was designed to operate like metro. Same capacity as metro with lower costs.

More information: http://vimeo.com/12499536

In the video you will also see about smart traffic lights and dedicated lanes (of course, since its the base of the BRT), and the design of the system, with feed lines and trunk lines.

 

[douglasrac]

Im playing the South City and I was about to connect the third island with metro and I decided to make it with BRT, crossing the lake. It cost 35,000 plus 2,500 for wires and 8 trolleys. Saved, restarted the previous game then I made with metro system. Cost me 51,000 and was much less profitable.

I would like to see the speed of each vehicle like in CiM 1. I don't know if the trip time was much longer with BRT, at least the amount of passengers was the same. And I used trolleys not buses.

 

[Damion]

Im playing the South City and I was about to connect the third island with metro and I decided to make it with BRT, crossing the lake. It cost 35,000 plus 2,500 for wires and 8 trolleys. Saved, restarted the previous game then I made with metro system. Cost me 51,000 and was much less profitable.

I would like to see the speed of each vehicle like in CiM 1. I don't know if the trip time was much longer with BRT, at least the amount of passengers was the same. And I used trolleys not buses.

Did you make an equal number of stops for each system?

 

[douglasrac]

Yes. Its an express line, there are only 3 stops. 2 near the depot and 1 in the other side of the lake.

 

[slornie]

I don't know if the trip time was much longer with BRT, at least the amount of passengers was the same. And I used trolleys not buses.

Can't you see how long the trip takes in the stop list (where it has the +35mins, etc from departure)? Alright that's only an estimate, but you can still compare the estimates given for each of your designs.

 

[douglasrac]

Yes! Good idea. The BRT takes 2:15 while the metro takes 1:15 (one direction only). The BRT loses more time in total because it requires more stops. The BRT have 2 depots to avoid a turnaround while for the metro I made a loop underground. That means more stops for the BRT system, two every depot. But that is unnecessary, because the trolley go inside the second depot with passengers.

The metro makes the entire trip in 2:20 while the BRT takes 4:40. Also the metro is penalized because the depot is far from the route, so it could be less.

Anyway, the operational costs are much lower with the BRT system. At least for now, the BRT seems to be much better in the case. With the metro I have only 1,000 in profit, while the BRT gives me 7,000. With more passengers the metro would probably be the best. I used trains that can carry 120 passengers (240 overcrowd), which is unnecessary for the route.

In this particular case, its a long line that require less capacity and more frequency, because there are less stops. Maybe I should mention that in the CiM Guide.

P.S.: The fact that I have such a long trolley line also increase the willing for the passengers to pay more for trolley tickets which increase the profit in all other short trolley lines.

 

[Damion]

Would you help me understand the revenue and cost breakdown? That can be more insightful than simply profit vs profit.

 

[douglasrac]

I can't do better than profit - expenses of the current line. Since my network have many other lines, its hard to say what is drivers, maintenance, etc. There is no way to get this information separated.

The real question here is if BRT is worth it or not and/or if they can replace metros as Curitiba city did. Or even if BRT can be as long as metro. The answer is yes.

But you can easily guess other things like, BRT system will have higher drivers costs because you will need more buses than metro trains. But electric consumption of trolleys is much lower. You can have 4,5 trolleys (which gives you 270 capacity), against one large metro train, that gives you 240 capacity.

Large metro train: electric consumption for 100 Km: 450
Large trolley bus: electric consumption for 100 Km: 100

4,5 trolleys will also give you 4,5 times more frequency than 1 metro train. So put your desired timetable into account. If you want high frequency you might spend too much on metro trains to keep up with it.

Train stations also have higher costs than trolleys stops. But that at the end of the account makes no difference.

For the vehicles, you buy 1 large metro train with $4,500 and 4,5 trolley buses with $5,850.

I guess its a choice of speed, costs of construction and cost of operation.

 

[Damion]

Well, I am primarily asking if the revenues are higher in the Metro system versus BRT. Profit = Revenue - Expenses. If profit is lower but revenue is significantly higher, there might still be a business case for using Metro because you have higher ridership.

CiM2 does breakdown the revenue, expenses, and profit for each line.

 

[douglasrac]

Oh yes, if I recall correctly the revenue is about the same, $8,000. If you take out the expenses, metro is $1,000 and trolley $7,000. That is due to high maintenance costs of metro and lack of passengers. I'm moving in average 750 per hour.

 

[Damion]

750 passengers per hour during peak, or 750*24 = 18k passengers per day? That's a nontrivial number! Why are your revenues so low?

Here is what I have in my current campaign game for example.

My most profitable Metro line, Metro 1, is under 500 pax/hr yet pulls in 131k profit per wk, or 19k profit per day.

 

[unmerged(424960)]

I tried the BRT system and I have to say that it works. It would be better if we could build expressways on both direction as a normal road.

 

[douglasrac]

My mistake. The name of the field is Daily average. So its 750 to 800 passengers per day, not per hour.

 

[C40LFR]

There are many factors when choosing BRT, Tram, or Metro. Unless it is "Gold" or at the very least, a higher-end "Silver" BRT,(see: http://www.itdp.org/microsites/the-brt-standard-2013/ ) then it's absolutely not all that useful.

Metros are to be placed strategically because of their cost. However, where metro reins supreme is travel time and capacity. I would need to literally choke the busway and/or streets with buses to even think about competing with Metro that runs at 6 minute headways. One thing that this game also doesn't model is preferred mode. People like rail, and you will attract allot more people than a fancy bus, especially if the city is car dependent.

Buses also aren't nearly as clean, and because I have run more buses to run the same amount of people a metro could, that means more operators and fuel costs.

Also, unless you have distance based fares, buses give the illusion of being cheaper to run. The average trip on many local buses 2-6 miles, but for the same $1.50 fare you can travel 20 miles via metro. Thus, because the buses is getting that $1.50 at every block, it appears to be more profitable.(even if the fare for Metro is higher) Of course, this is more in perspective of real life, and not necessarily the game.

 

[Butelka64]

This is for those who told me once that hybrid vehicles are merely for marketing purposes and nobody uses them in real life. Curitiba is implementing hybrid buses in their fleet. This is of course not only due to ecological matters, but economical. The hybrid buses consumes 35% less fuel compared to a similar vehicle that operates only with diesel. Also the diesel used is already biodiesel.

Of course hybrid buses are used. Even more, if we look on the popularity they gained over the past years, they are used very widely. However, in most cities which have hybrid buses, it's a tiny piece of the whole fleet. Why? Because in fact they don't spare as much fuel as suggested by the producers, and their purchase and maintenance costs are significantly higher compared to regular diesel vehicles. The CEOs and other people who talk on press conferences usually speak of their products and activities being effective and overall great, but we don't have any good practical data reference, to compare them to the others. I say that hybrid buses are not so fuel efficient, because I talked to people, who were close enough to the hybrid buses being tested in my city, that they can estimate the fuel consumption quite accurately.

 

[douglasrac]

Those BRT Standards are nice. But they don't mean much for CiM.

- Busway alignment: not sure what it is. No description;
- Dedicated right-of-way: if we assume BRT is only when we give exclusive roads then this is always 100%. I don't consider bus lanes in a normal road as BRT, because without control of traffic lights its a BT not BRT (not rapid )
- Off-board fare collection: means nothings in game.
- Intersection treatments: not possible.
- Platform-level boarding: means nothings in game.

 

[C40LFR]

Those BRT Standards are nice. But they don't mean much for CiM.

- Busway alignment: not sure what it is. No description;
- Dedicated right-of-way: if we assume BRT is only when we give exclusive roads then this is always 100%. I don't consider bus lanes in a normal road as BRT, because without control of traffic lights its a BT not BRT (not rapid )
- Off-board fare collection: means nothings in game.
- Intersection treatments: not possible.
- Platform-level boarding: means nothings in game.

Busway alignment is basically if you were to take the cross-section of the roadway or street the BRT is on. Basically page 17, where it shows the different examples and what each example would score.

Also, curbside bus lanes on normal streets are still given 4 points out of 7 according to the standard. Curbside lanes can still be BRT, just not as high quality BRT.

Signal control really needs to be added to the game. Signal preemption would be welcomed, as well as maybe some kind of control over how what percentage of the time the bus/trams gets the signal(For example, in order prevent the build up of traffic, you set it to 75% to allow only 10 buses per hour with signal priority)

Passing Lanes would work great if in CiM2 buses would actually pass each other.

There definitely needs to be some kind of BRT standard. Nowadays, especially here in the US, many agencies are simply using the "BRT" willy-nilly, and using it as a cheap and inadequate replacement for light rail. Many BRTs in the US are simply limited stop buses with fancy branding, or they have limited if any signal priority at all.

 

[Murph9000]

There definitely needs to be some kind of BRT standard. Nowadays, especially here in the US, many agencies are simply using the "BRT" willy-nilly, and using it as a cheap and inadequate replacement for light rail. Many BRTs in the US are simply limited stop buses with fancy branding, or they have limited if any signal priority at all.

Since BRT isn't a trademark, just a generic TLA for a relatively loose concept, I think it's very unlikely that there will ever be a universally agreed and accepted standard for what does and doesn't qualify as BRT. Personally, "a cheap and inadequate replacement for light rail" is more or less exactly what I think of when I hear "BRT". That's not to say that BRT doesn't have its place in the world, more that it's too-widely used as a way of avoiding proper and needed investment in trams and/or rail.

 

[Damion]

My mistake. The name of the field is Daily average. So its 750 to 800 passengers per day, not per hour.

750-800 passengers a day is too low to really justify a BRT or Metro. I would suggest looking at a more popular segment.

 

[douglasrac]

It should be a very popular route, since its connecting 2 major islands and replacing a boat route that is fairly popular.

I will compare bus and boat travel times to see which one is faster.