Institute for Transportation and Development Policy

Promoting sustainable and equitable transportation worldwide

The Effects of Transportation on Early Childhood Development

by Julien Vincelot and Patrin Watanatada, Bernard van Leer Foundation

If you were in Los Angeles one morning last September, you might have noticed small groups of adults making their way downtown on foot while pushing empty strollers or carrying bags of rice as heavy as an 18-month-old child. These men and women had come from Amsterdam, California, Dakar, London, Madrid, New York City, Shenzhen, Tel Aviv, and other cities to contribute their expertise to an Urban95 meeting on urban transport for families, hosted by the Bernard van Leer Foundation. Urban95 asks city leaders, planners, designers, and engineers: “If you could experience the city from 95 cm—the height of a three year old— what would you change?”

Babies and toddlers deserve a good start in life, and the best way to achieve that is to support the people who care for them. So, what does this have to do with transportation?

 

Urban Transportation and the Developing Brain

Between conception and age three, the brain is developing rapidly and is more sensitive to external experiences and inputs—both negative and positive—than at any other time in life. These experiences set the foundation for health and learning in later childhood and into adulthood. And they are powerfully influenced by the mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, siblings, friends, and professionals who care for them. These primary caregivers not only influence the quality of food, play, and healthcare but they also provide warm, responsive human interactions that the developing brain depends on to build neural connections.

Urban transportation can affect the quality of the experiences that shape the developing brain— for good and for bad. It affects access to healthy food, healthcare, childcare, and other key early childhood services. The quality of transportation and planning affects the extent to which pregnant women, babies, and toddlers can access the services they need for healthy development: sources of healthy food, well-baby clinics, and other primary healthcare, childcare, parks, and play spaces.

It can cause stress for caregivers. Traveling in the city can be tiring, long, stressful, or dangerous for caregivers, which affects the quality and amount of responsive care they can provide.

It can pollute the air. For children under five, the top two causes of death are preterm birth complications and lower respiratory illnesses. In urban areas, air pollution from vehicles is a significant contributor to both. What’s more, the damage air pollution causes to still-maturing brains and lungs—asthma, cancer, cognitive impairment, and reduced lung functioning—can last a lifetime.

 

How City Planners and Transport Agencies Can Build Healthy Brains

Better walking and cycling infrastructure, widespread, affordable and safe public transportation, and low-emission zones benefit every urban dweller, including babies, toddlers, and the people who care for them. But until these exist throughout every city, we encourage cities to prioritize the health of their youngest residents and the adults they will become by considering the following:

  • 20-minute (or less) neighborhoods for babies. City planning for the needs of pregnant women, babies, and toddlers starts with understanding where they live and where they need to go. Shortening distances to key early childhood services is one of the best things a city can do for the healthy development of its babies and toddlers. Researchers at Turkey’s Kadir Has University and the TESEV thinktank have produced Istanbul’s first map of children under five by income level, and some of its municipalities are beginning to use the map to plan home visits and public spaces. In Tel Aviv, Israel, the departments of Community, Culture & Sports and Social Services are collaborating to share physical facilities to locate early childhood services closer to families. This is being piloted in five community centers with the goal to allow parents to walk to well-baby clinics.

 

 

Rio de Janeiro Joins Other Latin American City Leaders in Parking Reform

A few weeks ago, the City of Rio de Janeiro approved new building codes to restrict off-street parking and promote non-motorized transport by removing parking minimums, making Rio the first Brazilian city to pass parking legislation. This ruling comes after years of advocacy by ITDP Brazil, such as the 2017 study on Rio de Janeiro’s parking legislation, and places Rio de Janeiro in the company of other Latin American city leaders in parking reform including Mexico City.

Rio parking legislation study

For almost 50 years, the legislation of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second most-populous municipality, has given cars priority in land space and usage.  In 1967, following a worldwide trend, the city mandated parking minimums, requiring at least one vehicle parking space for every one housing unit.  Parking minimums, which are common in cities around the world, require developers to build large amounts of parking regardless of the market demand or transit accessibility. This results in cities ceded huge amounts of space for parking cars, at the expense of much bigger needs, such as housing, public spaces, and cycling and walking infrastructure. Parking minimums also increase housing costs, and limit mobility and accessibility in the city overall.

The much-needed update to an outdated parking policy removes a mandate for a minimum of one space per housing unit for buildings within 800 meters of transit, and replaces it with a maximum of one parking space for every four residential units.  It is also now mandatory to offer bike parking facilities at a minimum of one space per housing unit.

Off-street parking reform webinar at Rio City Hall

ITDP Brazil used a variety of different avenues to advocate for new off-street parking and TOD policy parameters in Rio de Janeiro’s urban laws.  After the release of the aforementioned study on Rio de Janeiro’s parking legislation, ITDP Brazil found that 42% of the built area in Rio de Janeiro from 2006-2015 was dedicated to vehicles. When examining specifically non-residential buildings, the land space dedicated to parking jumped to 70%.  After further analysis, it was discovered that space dedicated to vehicles could address 57% of the city’s housing deficit with 60 square meter housing units.

Following with the release of the study, ITDP Brazil hosted various workshops and webinars with city officials on off-street parking policies in Rio, advocating for parking restrictions, more rapid transit, and increasing options for sustainable mobility. Engaging with planners, public managers, and government representatives, and sharing success stories from ITDP Mexico’s parking reform success resulted in ITDP contributing to the revision of the city’s land use policy with TOD and parking reform.

 

Fortaleza & Bucheon City Honored at 2019 Sustainable Transport Award

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“Fortaleza and Bucheon are here tonight because they put in place projects that humanize their cities: putting people first.”

-Michael Kodransky, Sustainable Transport Award Committee Chair

On January 15, ITDP and the Sustainable Transport Award (STA) committee awarded Fortaleza, Brazil, with the 2019 Sustainable Transport Award and Bucheon, South Korea with an Honorable Mention for their sustainable transport achievements at the 15th annual STA ceremony in Washington D.C.  Delegates from Fortaleza received their award from Clarisse Linke, ITDP Brazil Director, and honorable mention Bucheon from Michael Kodransky, STA Committee Chair.  The ceremony opened with welcome remarks from ITDP’s CEO, Heather Thompson and continued with a keynote address from Tilly Chang, Executive Director of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority before concluding with the award presentations.

For 15 years, the Sustainable Transport Award has recognized cities that demonstrate political courage by implementing innovative sustainable transport projects in the preceding year. These projects improve mobility for all residents, reduce transport and air pollution emissions, and improve safety and access, particularly for cyclists and pedestrians. Fortaleza won the 2019 award for a series of cycling, walking, and transit improvements, while Bucheon received the honorable mention for creative improvements to public spaces around transit.

Each year, ITDP and the Sustainable Transport Award Committee select a city that has implemented innovative sustainable transportation projects in the preceding year. These strategies improve mobility for all residents, reduce transportation greenhouse and air pollution emissions, and improve safety and access for cyclists and pedestrians. The winning city and honorable mentions are honored at a ceremony in Washington, DC in January. As the STA winner, Fortaleza will host ITDP’s 2019 MOBILIZE Summit.

As Climate Change Escalates, US Cities Fail to Provide Car Alternatives


Minneapolis emerges as a middle-tier mass transit role model while seven major US cities provide less than one eighth of their populations with “frequent transit” options.

Many US cities are failing to connect people to jobs through mass transit, according to our new report that uses census and employment data to establish 12 new benchmarks for how mass transit systems serve urban populations. More than one third of the US cities surveyed—all with significant climate change risk—have grown without developing any substantial mass transit systems to serve their populations.

The new report, Indicators for Sustainable Mobility, defines criteria to evaluate mass transportation systems and then uses the criteria to assess 20 cities in the US and compare the scores to those of eight cities in Canada and Mexico.

“We know what happens when cities grow without a solid plan for transport, because we’re seeing it now in some of the fastest-growing cities of both the Global South and southern US,” said Joe Chestnut, author of the ITDP report. “Without alternatives, middle-class wage earners become increasingly dependent on their cars, spending more and more time stuck in traffic, and less wealthy communities simply lose access to the city.”

Metrobus in the Centro Historico of Mexico City.

Compared to major cities in Canada and Mexico, US cities, on average, lag in terms of transit access, speed, comfort and access to destinations. Toronto and Vancouver join Chicago and New York City as the only cities serving more than 85 percent of their populations with frequent transit.

Minneapolis also emerged as one of the best cities for mass transit, with 74 percent of its population, 89 percent of all jobs, and 84 percent of all low-income households all within a 500-meter walk or a 10-minute bike ride of frequent transit. Boston, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., were the only other US cities serving more than 70 percent of their populations, jobs, and low-income households with frequent transit.

More cities sat at the opposite end of the spectrum, however, with some of the fastest growing metropolitan areas relying almost exclusively on automobile traffic as the sole transportation option. Memphis stood out in this regard, with less than 10 percent of all jobs, 2 percent of all low-income households, and 2 percent of people overall within a 500-meter walk or a 10-minute bike ride of frequent transit. Nashville and San Antonio also served less than one quarter of all jobs, and less than one tenth of all low-income households and people overall served by frequent transit.

The report found many ways in which low-income populations were just as poorly served by transit as other communities, even though their needs are greater. ITDP measured low-income households near rapid transit as the percentage of the population that makes less than $20,000 a year that is located within about a 10-minute bike ride or walk of a rapid transit station. The report found that, although there is not a major difference in terms of proximity to transit, there is a lack of access to jobs that don’t require a high school education with a 30- or 60-minute commute, putting them out of reach of the people who most need them.

“In the US, there is a narrative that if people work hard, then they can get out of poverty, but we’ve built cities that make this narrative impossible,” said Chestnut. “For households making less than $20,000 per year, reliable cars are a pipe dream: a huge expense that they can’t afford. Without adequate transit, they will remain stuck in place.”

 

Benchmarking Success in Mass Transportation

The ITDP report found that the high-performing cities all focused on keeping mass transit frequent, rapid and accessible:

  • Frequent—A bus or train every 12 minutes or less from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Increasing transit frequency is the single most important thing cities can do to increase transit ridership. It may not be sufficient alone, but it is the single most important predictor of transit use.
  • Rapid—Slow-moving buses stuck in traffic are not an appealing option. In addition to frequency, transit needs to have priority on streets—a dedicated tram or busway, off-board fare collection and all-door boarding are some of the features that make transit rapid.
  • Access to Destinations—You can’t take transit if it doesn’t go where you need to go. At a minimum, it needs to take you between home and work, but should also offer options for mobility overall—changing jobs, moving houses, taking children to school, shopping, health care. This is measured by a host of indicators: everything from people’s daily access to transport, to jobs located near transit, to cycling infrastructure, to city characteristics such as block density, which makes for a more walkable environment.

First Street green bike lane in Los Angeles.
Photo Credit: LADOT Bike Blog

ITDP’s analysis revealed that good biking infrastructure improves access to frequent transit. Protected bike lanes are an inexpensive way for cities to increase the number of people using frequent transit lines, often solving the “first-last mile” problem. On average, bike lanes increased access to frequent transit by 2.5 percent or about 21,000 people per city.

The researchers also found that the more access people have to transit and jobs, the more they tend to use transit. Those cities with higher transit mode share also tended to have high-capacity transit corridors, such as major arteries that cut through the city center, with dedicated lanes for buses, as well as metro or light rail. Lower transit mode share would include islands of coverage, such as a park-and-ride cluster in certain areas, requiring most people to drive at least part of the trip.

Interestingly, Los Angeles—famous for its gridlock and smog—placed in the middle of the pack, serving 45 percent of its population, 59 percent of jobs, and 57 percent of low-income households with frequent transit.

“Climate change is forcing a rethink of urban development principles across the US, and provide more transport options. Cities are doing that are seeing some really positive results, while cities that cling to the “cars only” model are falling behind,” added ITDP’s Chestnut. “In creating universal benchmarks, we can see how cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, and Minneapolis have made tremendous strides in improving access without cars. These cities are healthier and more equitable places to live because of these improvements.”

 

Minneapolis Stands Out

Minneapolis Metro Transit Green Line Light Rail

While the overall picture of transport access is dim, the city of Minneapolis stood out as a role model. Although a much smaller city, Minneapolis is close to Washington, DC, in terms of transit ridership percentage and Frequent Transit, and rivals Boston and Philadelphia in terms of block density, a key indicator of a quality walking environment.

Minneapolis’ success is partly due to smart policies around an ambitious plan for transit-oriented development, Minneapolis 2040. This includes investing in a quality bike network, a system of off-street trails that the city is building on to create 35 miles of protected bikeways. Minneapolis significantly increased access to cycling and transit, growing the percentage of people living near frequent transit (PNFT) from 64 percent to 73 percent. This was the largest increase among all the cities that ITDP evaluated, and the city’s scores were comparable to larger coastal cities like Boston and Seattle. In contrast, Dallas––a much larger city with a limited frequent transit network––serves only 41 percent of all jobs, 14 percent of all low-income households, and 11 percent of all people overall within a 500-meter walk or a 10-minute bike ride of frequent transit.

“Minneapolis has very intentionally tied transportation and land use decisions together in policy, focusing growth near transit and prioritizing infrastructure improvements in growing parts of the city,” says Lisa Bender, president of the Minneapolis City Council. “We have made very specific commitments to using public transportation investments to advance city goals supporting race equity and fighting climate change.”

 

Fortaleza’s Progress Shows that Change is Still Possible in Brazil


Fortaleza has shown the impact that small, low-cost interventions can have on quality of life. Pedestrian improvements such as this raised crosswalk massively improve pedestrian safety and access to the streets.  Photo: Fortaleza City Hall

by Clarisse Cunha Linke, ITDP Brazil

 

The capital of Ceará sees traffic fatalities drop to the lowest level in 15 years after creating a mobility strategy with speed reduction interventions, priority bus lanes, and cycling infrastructure.

With 2.6 million inhabitants and rapidly growing, Fortaleza is Brazil’s fifth largest city and fourth most popular tourist destination. From 2010 to 2015, the city’s fleet of vehicles increased by 40%, while the population grew only by 5.7%. Motorbikes increased three times more than cars. The city had massive congestion and one of the highest death tolls in the country. When Mayor Roberto Claudio was elected in 2013, he made tackling traffic congestion a priority with the launch of a Plan for Immediate Interventions on Transport and Traffic in Fortaleza (PAITT – Plano de Ações Imediatas em Trânsito e Transporte). The Plan called for a sustainable approach to mobility policies, emphasizing public transport, traffic safety measures, walking, and cycling infrastructures. By 2016, the annual monitoring system of traffic accidents revealed the lowest number of road traffic deaths in 15 years.

 

A Broader Context

For decades, transport planning in Brazil has focused on improving the conditions for automobiles at the expense of public transport, pedestrians, and cyclists. The automobile industry has been central to Brazil’s economy since the 1960s, shaping policies and incentives to own cars. Cities’ regulations were modified to accommodate private vehicles, increase road capacity and ensure parking spaces were available at both origin and destination. As a result, public transport ridership has decreased by over 25% in the last decade, while the automobile fleet has doubled.

The country has an exceptional regulatory framework for sustainable urban mobility. After decades of debate, in 2012, the National Urban Mobility Policy was adopted to reshape the direction of the country’s mobility plans and guide transport investments. This policy stresses public transport, walking, cycling, and more integration between transport and land use policies. In parallel, the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) pledged over 150 billion BRL for transport infrastructure.

However, a recent assessment by the Ministry of Cities showed only 15 out of 329 transport projects contracted were finalized, due to lack of technical capacity. There is mounting pressure by society on the government to be more prompt and adept in their urban mobility planning. That includes dialogue with the population, project design, identification of sources of funding and financing, ensuring project quality throughout the execution and monitoring & evaluation frameworks.

While the rest of the country has put most investments on hold due to the political and economic crisis, Fortaleza shows resilience and the political will to advance sustainable mobility.

A recreation of a classic photo series showing the amount of space needed to transport the same number of people on bikes, transit, and cars. Photo: ITDP Brazil
A recreation of a classic photo series showing the amount of space needed to transport the same number of people on bikes, transit, and cars. Photo: ITDP Brazil
A recreation of a classic photo series showing the amount of space needed to transport the same number of people on bikes, transit, and cars. Photo: ITDP Brazil

Change Ahead

Learning from best practices implemented by progressive cities such as New York and Bogotá, the city has had an intense technical exchange with other cities and support from nongovernmental organizations. PAITT looks at short to medium term, low-cost transport solutions. The city also looked at strategies to encourage active transport, such as cycling and walking, and measures to lower the speed of vehicles–a crucial step to reduce the high numbers of road deaths.

With the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), a key partner in Fortaleza, PAITT has gained extra strength. Speed reduction interventions have been rolled out in hotspots where traffic injuries are highest. These measures include speed reduction of arterial lanes, narrowing traffic lanes, adding bike paths, raised pedestrian crossings, curb extensions, and redesigning of unsafe intersections.

Temporary interventions such as Cidade da Gente (People’s City) had demonstrated urban transformation is possible. As an example, the residential neighborhood of Cidade 2000 shifted road priority from vehicles to pedestrians by turning 1,200 square meters of parking space and traffic lanes into a pedestrian area.

Cycle lanes and crosswalks are some of the ways Fortaleza is demonstrating priority for pedestrians and cyclists on its streets. Photos: Fortaleza City Hall

Cycle lanes and crosswalks are some of the ways Fortaleza is demonstrating priority for pedestrians and cyclists on its streets. Photos: Fortaleza City Hall

The city has added over 111 km of bus lanes since 2013, with improved travel time for the 1,200 thousand trips a day. With the dedicated lanes, average bus speed increased from 4.4 to 13.5 km/h. The optimization of overlapping bus lines on the city’s main bus corridor resulted in saving 9.2 tons of CO2 per day. All 2,251 city buses have wifi, GPS, and air conditioning. Recently, seven terminals were refurbished including integration with Light Rail Train (LRT) and subway.

The cycle network has grown 350%, or 170 km, since 2013. In 2014, a Cycling Infrastructure Strategic Plan was delivered, with a total grid plan of 524 km. With a cycling policy in place, the government has tagged investments for the cycling infrastructure. In August this year, revenue from the digital Zona Azul, a new on-street parking regulation system, was secured to be reinvested into bike lanes. Annual bike counts conducted by the city have seen a 153% increase in the number of cyclists from 2012 to 2017.

The city has now four bicycle sharing systems. The main one, Bicicletar (operator Sertell and sponsor UNIMED), has 80 stations (with 6 trips per day per bike, it is one of the most used in Brazil). Bicicleta Integrada is a system specific for the last mile. Seven stations and 350 bicycles are located in the bus terminals. The system runs with an integrated public transport fare card—there is no need to have a credit card, and users can keep them for up to 14 hours with the bicycles (overnight)— which makes it accessible and equitable. One-third of users are women. Mini Bicicletar is a system with 50 bicycles located next to plazas, specifically for children, which is critical to encouraging toddlers and children using a bike for the first time. Finally, Bicicletar Corporativo was formed as a pilot project to test a model for the corporate sector. Currently, there are 6 stations and 14 bikes at City Hall for public officials to ride. They can take bikes overnight and keep them for up to 20 hours. 42% of Bicicletar Corporativo users are women and 40% are between 45 and 60 years old.

The sharing system has moved beyond bikes in Fortaleza. Vamo is the first public electric car sharing system in the country, with 16 stations and 20 vehicles. On-demand travel with electric vehicles and ride sharing, along with greater use of public transport, cycling, and walking is the roadmap to reduce car travel and change the future cities.

Public space is one of the most important elements for a dignifying citizenship experience. To counterbalance the car hegemony of today’s cities, we need to engage citizens and show them what can be done to enhance the public space.

In face of growing political conservatism and backward agendas, Fortaleza demonstrates that through creativity, innovation, and leadership it is possible to promote sustainable mobility. It gives us hope that political will combined with the capacity to prioritize and roll out mobility and people-friendly streets is not only the future we want – but a future we can deliver.

Reclaiming the Streets of Fortaleza, Brazil (Issue 30)

In this vibrant issue of the Sustainable Transport magazine, we look forward to new leadership at ITDP, dive even deeper into the topic of women’s access to transit, explore progress and change in Fortaleza, learn about how transportation and early childhood development intersect, and much more!

E-Scooters Could be a Last-Mile Solution for Everyone

Like docked and dockless bikeshare before them, dockless electric “kick” scooters are taking off in popularity, responding to a strong and growing need for urban car alternatives like transit and “last mile” connections. As part of a menu of urban transportation options, scooters have the potential to reduce short-distance, single occupancy vehicle and TNC (Transportation Network Company, e.g. Uber, Lyft, Via) trips, reducing urban congestion and emissions. Scooters provide a low cost, flexible mobility option for short trips, particularly those connected to transit. Bikes have long provided an excellent option for last-mile trips, and they continue to do so. However, the popularity, and user-friendliness of e-scooters may offer an even easier option for the first and last mile.

Scooters, particularly e-scooters, offer an option that pretty much anyone, regardless of fitness or ability, can ride for short trips. As with shared bikes, cities have an opportunity to leverage scooters, and other privately-operated, shared modes in a way that more directly encourages their use in coordination with transit. For example, cities could work with operators to subsidize scooter and bikeshare rides that start or end at transit using common payment options. This level of targeted integration benefits cities by expanding access to transit at a relatively low cost per mile (compared to building new stations, adding buses, etc.), benefits users by making sustainable, multi-modal trips more streamlined and affordable, and benefits companies by establishing a loyal, diverse customer base.

Scooters, bikes, and other technology-enabled shared modes have a role to play in shifting the paradigm away from personal car ownership. Cities can take advantage of this opportunity by understanding the demand for car-alternatives for short trips, and setting smart, goal-oriented regulations that help address that demand. Data from Portland’s scooter pilot shows that 34% of resident scooter riders would have otherwise driven a personal car or taken a taxi or TNC if a scooter hadn’t been available for their most recent trip. While this is promising support for scooters helping to reduce car trips, the data also indicates that 37% of respondents would have otherwise walked if a scooter wasn’t available. When asked how often they rode a scooter to or from a transit stop, 61% responded ‘never’. These last two data points underscore the need for cities to ensure that scooters support public transit, walking and cycling, instead of competing with these modes.

Photo Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pbotinfo/44665532241

Scooter riders during Portland Bureau of Transport e-scooter event

More, and longer-term data on scooter trips could help cities decide whether scooters are, in fact, providing a first-last mile connection to transit, substituting car trips, or pushing pedestrians and cyclists away from biking and walking.

 

Funding the Last-Mile Solution

Cities are now more prepared for the “ask forgiveness, not permission” attitude of privately-operated mobility services, and are responding to the unpermitted launch of e-scooters much more quickly and systematically than with transportation network companies like Uber, or even dockless bikeshare companies. While a few cities have outright banned scooters, most have launched pilots to test regulations and evaluate potential for long-term integration of scooters into the transportation network. In some cases, such as in Austin, Denver, and Los Angeles, cities are moving to combine permitting of dockless bikes, e-bikes, and e-scooters under a common regulatory scheme.

Other cities are taking more concrete steps to improve scooter and bike riders’ comfort on the street by requiring private operators to help fund infrastructure and other road safety improvements. Indianapolis is the first city to require scooter operators to pay $1 per scooter per day into a fund for road safety improvements for cyclists and scooter riders. Scooter operator, Bird, has volunteered to pay a similar amount for infrastructure improvements in other cities (many of which have been hesitant to accept Bird’s offer) however, some reportedly do not have a process in place to accept this type of funding from the private sector. Regardless, this new model of collaboration between cities and private companies to fund projects that make choosing a scooter or bike as a last-mile solution safer could prove successful, as long as cities are clear about what their goals are and why they are asking companies to share costs.

Encouraging the use of dockless scooters as a first-last mile option could also help connect people living further from the city center to public transit. Residents who live in outer neighborhoods tend to have fewer transit options, and likely require both a first and last mile solution for their trip. These residents stand to benefit the most from improved access to reliable, affordable first-last mile options.

Cities and e-scooter operators have an opportunity to learn from bikeshare by recognizing the demand – especially in neighborhoods further from downtown – for low-cost, reliable transportation options that aren’t private vehicles. It’s also critical for cities to realize their role in supporting sustainable transport like bikeshare and e-scootershare with protected infrastructure that can serve cyclists and scooters well, along with cost-effective and convenient connections with transit. Technology and private capital offer cities great tools to improve the lives of their residents, and taking full advantage of these tools means making space on our streets for many mobility options: scooters, bikes, transit, and shared vehicles all have a role to play in a healthy, vibrant transport system.

For more on e-scooters, check out our post: Scooters Are Not A Public Safety Crisis, but Cars Still Are

The Electric Revolution Begins with Buses


Photo Source

The first in a four-part series on electric buses done in partnership with the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) and ITDP.

Clean air has become a rare commodity in the 21st century. Today nine out of ten people breathe unhealthy air, according to the World Health Organization, resulting in dire consequences. Annual global mortality from ambient particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone exposure has increased 24 percent since 1990. Meanwhile global average temperatures in 2017 were 1.17 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures, second only to 2016 temperatures. The warming component of climate change has contributed to massive wildfires like those that afflicted California in November, in turn causing dismal air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The transportation sector is a major contributor to these twin problems of poor air quality and climate change. In a major polluted city like Beijing, vehicles are now the largest single contributor to ambient particulate matter, reaching 45 percent of total pollutants in 2017. Globally, transportation emission sources contribute up to 23% of average ozone exposure and 12% of average PM2.5 exposure. In 2010, the transport sector was responsible for 23 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. We can address these challenges in the near-term  with a two-pronged strategy. First, we can initiate an immediate transition to the cleanest soot-free engines, while developing and implementing in parallel an operational shift to low-carbon, zero-emission, electric-drive engines.

More than 80% of all buses use older diesel engines and high sulfur fuel.

Bus fleets are the right place for cities to start the electric revolution. Buses already provide some of the absolute lowest carbon dioxide emissions per passenger-kilometer.  Because more than 80 percent of all buses use older diesel engines and high sulfur fuel, the global bus fleet is responsible for an estimated 15 percent of all particulate matter emissions from on-road transportation.  The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) has set a goal to double the market share of public transit by 2025 in support of international climate change targets. While this target is an effective low-carbon policy on its own, which will require a large increase in bus fleets, at a minimum, bus fleets need to quickly shift to soot-free diesel and gas engines to mitigate hazardous outdoor air pollution as investments in bus fleets expand. A better approach is to leapfrog vehicle technology by operating on zero-emission electric engines, which expand the climate mitigation potential of public transit, improve urban air quality, and increase the quality of public transit service.

Fortunately, bus fleets have operational characteristics that favor the introduction of new technologies, particularly electric drive engines, both to reduce risk and enable broader uptake throughout the rest of the fleet. Bus fleets are publicly regulated, they are centrally fueled, and they receive professional servicing and maintenance. Dedicated electric-drive engines are orders of magnitude more efficient than internal combustion diesel or gas engines.

That superior performance has been proven by on-road experience with Foothill Transit, a public transit agency in Southern California that is in the process of converting to a fleet of electric buses by 2030. Currently, the agency operates 14 buses from California-based manufacturer Proterra that are eight times more fuel efficient than the conventional compress natural gas buses operating in the fleet, according to the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Foothill Transit in southern California is introducing electric buses to its fleet.
Image Source: CalTransit

Foothill Transit serves a small population on the eastern fringe of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, but all-electric bus transitions are gaining speed in big cities around the world, including all-electric pioneer Shenzhen, as well as planned roll outs across North America in San Francisco, California and Windsor, Ontario. In October 2017, the mayors of London, Paris, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Quito, Vancouver, Mexico City, Milan, Seattle, Auckland, and Cape Town signed the C40 Fossil-Fuel-Free Streets Declaration to procure only zero-emission buses from 2025 forward, a pledge for which electric buses will play a key role.

While energy efficiency is paramount, electric buses also provide a better experience for the passenger, as their quiet motors offer a more pleasant ride over their noisy diesel counterparts. They also have fringe benefits for operators. With far lower maintenance costs, electric-drive buses have the potential to deliver lower costs over the lifetime of the vehicle, thus decreasing the costs of providing public transport service. But transit agencies need direct subsidies or changes to their financing models in order to cover the much higher upfront cost of transitioning their fleets to the electric buses. The specifics of that transition, meanwhile, mean that the large-scale leapfrog to zero-emission electric buses presents some questions for fleet operators.

To be continued in part two: “What, Exactly, is an Electric Bus?”

Support ITDP and the Future of Transit

Transit is dying. In the face of decades of underinvestment and a devotion to building cities for cars, public transit is deteriorating in cities around the world. You don’t have to look hard to see evidence of transit’s decline: last year, public transit ridership dropped in 31 of 35 major U.S. cities.

With transit becoming so unreliable, frustrated city residents are turning to cars and new, unregulated car services, often by simply clicking on an app—with major repercussions for our cities and our world. A landmark report issued by the United Nations in October painted a dire portrait of humanity’s future should we fail to massively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially from transport, which accounts for nearly a quarter of the world’s energy-related carbon emissions.

For too long, underinvestment and outsized attention to impractical and car-based technological “solutions” has detracted from, rather than built on, our cities’ transit systems. Now public transit is on life support and it needs your help!

As cities continue to rapidly grow, it’s more critical than ever that they commit to the best antidote to these harmful trends: fast, frequent, and well-funded public transit. Often, the steadfast options are still the best, and public transit remains the only way to move huge amounts of people quickly and sustainably.

Although ITDP is helping cities around the world embrace an inclusive approach to public transit, there is still so much to be done. Here are a just a couple of the places where your support can make a difference right now:

More Access, More Transit
To revive transit, it is not enough to just put new buses on the road; cities must provide new ways and reasons for people to leave their cars and hop on board. ITDP is helping Yichang, China rethink what a transit corridor should be by including improvements like protected bike lanes, beautiful greenways, and regulated dockless bikeshare that provides easy and safe ways to reach the bus rapid transit (BRT) system. Now your help is needed so that more cities can create greater accessibility and better transit.

Making BRT a Reality
Bus rapid transit offers cities a fast, affordable, and flexible public transit option. ITDP is helping cities from Semarang, Indonesia to Cairo, Egypt to São Paulo, Brazil plan high quality BRT systems that cut commuting times, slash emissions, and provide mobility to hundreds of thousands of city residents. But cities and our environment won’t reap the benefits of BRT without your help turning these plans into reality.

With cities facing swift growth and our climate rapidly changing, robust public transit is a necessity. Nothing can replace the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of public transit, and ITDP needs your support to revive this timeless solution.


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Improving BRT Systems in Latin America

Since BRT was born in Latin America in 1974 in Curitiba, Brazil, more than 20 systems have opened and are currently operating in Latin America, with key systems in Bogota and Quito now over 15 years old. Much of the focus on BRT, from advocates to planners and engineers to politicians, has traditionally been on planning and designing the BRT corridor just to reach the “ribbon-cutting” phase with little thought to sustaining operations afterwards. Cities and system operators often struggle with maintaining high-quality operations and integration in order to continue to attract ridership.

To address these issues with the region that has the most experience with BRT, ITDP convened a group of practitioners and decision makers to discuss the state of BRT from October 31- November 1, 2018 in Mexico City. This experience-sharing workshop was supported by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The workshop aimed to discover common operational problems and disseminate better BRT operation strategies that can be expanded or replicated into other systems, including in other regions such as Asia and Africa. In order to enrich the dialogue, experts and partners from WRI Brazil, WRI Mexico, BRT Center of Excellence, and 100 Resilient Cities were also invited and presented case studies, summing a total of 30 participants.

Participants at the Latin-American Experience-Sharing Workshop on BRT and Bus-Based Systems
Photos of BRT systems of cities that participated in the activity
Cities that have participated in the activity

The workshop was based on the presentation of twelve case studies by eleven different cities from six Latin American countries:

  • México City and Puebla from México
  • Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo from Brazil
  • Santiago from Chile
  • Barranquilla and Bogotá from Colombia
  • Quito from Ecuador
  • Guatemala City from Guatemala

From the 12 studies, ITDP selected the cases that responded the most to the systems’ main challenges and populated the responses in the graphs seen below:

Most relevant BRT and bus-based systems challenges according to a survey conducted with over 20 Latin-American managers
(click to enlarge)

Strategies presented included solutions for operations funding, institutional integration, fare evasion, frequent bus network design, regularity on both trunk and feeder lines, and tactical interventions for improved access among others. Service regularity was the most recurring technical topic mentioned in the discussions. According to participants and experts, offering rapid services on trunk routes is not enough. Especially as new and competing transport modes arise, it is imperative that users are confident that service will be consistent from starting point to destination.  This need imposes a special challenge for trunk and feeder systems and routes that run in mixed-traffic.

A few Latin American cities are implementing strategies to combat this problem. Bogotá’s TransMilenio is working on improving the precision of inter-corridor routes’ cycle time through the use of statistical methods, while Belo Horizonte has recently deployed simple measures such as shifting  feeder routes’ control points from the neighborhoods to the terminals to guarantee on schedule departure times from terminals during peak times. São Paulo has implemented continuous operational procedures that give more control to the transit agencies instead of private operators, including advance knowledge of which bus and driver are assigned to specific routes. The BRT Centre of Excellence is testing new technologies in Santiago (and Sweden) that should make it easier for drivers to know whether they should go faster or slower in order to keep route service punctual and consistent.

Reliable service is one of the most important factors in gaining ridership and innovative and holistic approaches are necessary to achieve reliable service. However, these approaches do not always involve new technology. The city of Barranquilla invested in a culture strengthening program that allocated staff to system stations.  The staff provided educational information for the users regarding fare media usage, respecting the system preferential seats, and queueing in stations. The program used this educational approach instead of simply enforcing and fining bad behavior, resulting in reduced fare evasion and vandalism to the system. Guatemala converted important streets near the BRT main stations into pedestrian-only, improving access, facilitating commercial activities and services to flourish and improve security. Learning from the implementation of the first Metrobus, Mexico City started to implement a series of improvements for pedestrian access to new corridor stations. During the workshop, participants visited the thriving areas around Metrobus lines 3 and 4 in downtown Mexico City.

The road to reliable, seamlessly integrated and attractive BRT and bus-based systems is complex and multidisciplinary. The convening of high-level BRT and bus system managers from key Latin-American cities where these systems are more mature represents a unique opportunity to improve operational strategies to increase the longevity of the BRT systems. With participants’ know-how, specially tailored peer exchanges, and international experts’ inputs, the workshop allowed decision makers to increase their ability to advance on their own technical and governance issues. At the same time, conclusions distilled from the discussions will also prove beneficial to systems operating in other world regions in subsequent years. The workshop was a small but important step on the road to global BRT system transformation that highlighted the necessity to continue the development of spaces for dialogue between different entities involved in the planning, implementing, and operating public transport systems to guarantee the development of more sustainable and inclusive cities and metropolitan regions around the world.