Think Tram - Use Busses!

What public transit solutions best suit medium-size cities, where bus systems aren’t particularly appealing and modern tram systems might be considered too expensive? The solution may be to build a new bus network that resembles a tram system.  Here’s the experience of Jönköping, a city of 100,000 in southern Sweden.  

Using the motto, “think tram, use buses,” Jönköping launched a new system on June 10, 1996 which features: a new bus network based on two main routes; low-floor articulated buses; and an information system that gives the location of all buses, real time information for passengers at bus stops, and green light priority for buses.  The system also features shorter distances between terminals, modern bus stops, and three transit providers in the same city bus system.

This bus rapid transit system, dubbed “Comfort 96”, was designed to reverse a long-term decline in ridership (1-2 percent a year), dwindling farebox recovery (then 50 percent), low investments in buses, and a city center that had lost many core businesses.

The city had two challenges:  the renovation of the public transport system and the revitalization of the city center, which was failing to compete with new commercial areas outside the city.  To bolster this effort, the City of Jönköping and the county Public Transport Authority called Jönköpings Länstrafik AB started to analyze the relationship between public transport and urban development, which was often overlooked in the past.

The City bus system serves areas of greatest population concentration. More than 60 percent of the inhabitants can reach their bus within a 600-meter (0.37-mile) radius.  The average distance to the nearest bus stop is less than 200 meters.  Jönköping needed a bus that would combine high capacity with low floor technology.  Like a tram, the new City bus has four doors.  The first and the third for entering and the second and fourth for getting off the bus.  Ticket buyers use the first door.  If you have a periodic card or a discount card you may enter the first or third door and then use the ticket machine inside the bus.  Most passengers appreciate low floor buses, especially disabled and elderly people.

Each City bus contains a computer that monitors progress through a GPS system.  The computers also trigger destination signs and give information about the next stop on screens and loudspeakers inside and outside each bus.  At the bus stop, a monitor tells people when the bus is arriving.  Shopkeepers like to have these monitors inside the shopping area.  Less time at the bus stop allows more time for shopping.  As a result, businesses have warmed to public transport since the new system started.  Some have proposed a third City bus route which would pass by the main entrance to a big shopping centre.

During most of the day City buses depart every ten minutes. The controller can follow each trip on the monitor and summon another bus if there are delays in the system.  However, delays are less common since computers also communicate with traffic lights.  The City buses get a “green wave” while cars and local buses have to stop at crossings.

Findings show that from 1996 to 1998, ridership rose more than 10 percent.  The system generated SEK 2.0 million in additional passenger revenues and reduced running costs by SEK 4.0 million, or an improvement of about SEK 6.0 million (US$592,000). This was double the revenue expected.  Despite low fares, the two City bus routes cover over 100 percent of costs.  However, if all local buses are included, the level of cost coverage declines to about 70 percent. That is still a marked improvement.  Before we started, the modal share for public transport was 19 percent in the city area.  Now it has increased to 22 percent (biking/walking not included).

Co-operation has been a key word in the project.  Without a positive relationship between the Public Transport Authority and the city the project could not have been implemented.  It is also important to have a good relationship with local entrepreneurs and their staff.  Thanks to the fact that all the decision-makers had the courage to believe in the project, initial difficulties during the implementation phase were resolved.  Moreover, Jönköping got a public transport system that most passengers consider a success.