Reinventing Transport

Jakarta's urban transport problems are epic and this metropolis of 24 million people seems an unlikely place to look for lessons, except maybe cautionary ones. But Yoga Adiwinarto, ITDP’s Country Director for Indonesia, wants you to know there is progress. In fact, there are lessons for other large cities in middle-income countries to learn from. Yoga and I discussed urban transport in Jakarta for Reinventing Transport episode #14.  Click here to learn how to subscribe to this podcast. Here are highlights of our conversation  I asked Yoga to 'paint a picture' of Jakarta, urban transport challenges and what it feels like to move around the city. [1:45] The challenges are huge but there have been improvements, to public transport for example. [6:58] The TransJakarta BRT started well in 2004, faced a very rough patch about five years later (a series of buses even caught fire!). [8:30] Among many other things, ITDP Indonesia has been helping Jakarta improve ...

I am excited by the prospect of urban 'mobility retailers' or 'mobility brokers'.  'Huh'? What is that, you ask? A mobility broker is a business that handles the retailing, marketing and information end of your mobility needs. It may not even own any vehicles or employ any drivers (and you won't have to either). You could think of it as an urban transport travel agent. Such services would probably be most attractive for people who choose not have a car of their own. Because urban mobility is much more spontaneous and immediate than long-distance travel, mobility brokers will need to handle requests extremely nimbly in real time. Most cities don't yet have such beasts in their urban transport landscape. Not yet. But I think they will emerge out the innovative and vibrant ecosystem of handheld devices, real-time information apps, social media and networking, car-sharing companies, new payment systems, telematics, location-based services, etc.  I t...

Freely flowing traffic is a good thing, right? And affordable motoring is good too, isn't it? Most motorists in most cities would surely agree. Maybe you would too? But as citizens and voters I think we need to be careful what we wish for. When political leaders decide that the central goals of urban transport policy are 1) solving traffic congestion and 2) keeping driving affordable, they may make themselves popular with motorists, but they also risk gradually turning their city into a monster.  I argued along these lines in a talk I gave on Wednesday to a couple of hundred junior college (high school) students (the presentation is at the end of this post). It was a non-technical talk on basic priorities in urban transport planning. Below is part of my reasoning. The Los Angeles region is not the world's most automobile-dependent city but it is the only mega-city to try so hard to keep driving fast and cheap. When faced with traffic problems it is tempting to ju...

Does your city have any public transport routes that guarantee high-frequency throughout the day? Are they metro/subway routes? Are some on buses? If any of those services are bus routes, are they highlighted as special, or do they seem like any other bus service? The Human Transit blog highlights the importance of being very clear which routes have high-quality, frequent service (regardless of technology): Berlin, for example, presents its system this way: Rapid transit, consisting of U-bahn and S-bahn. (These have numbers starting with U or S. Both are fully grade separated rail transit. ... ) Frequent local-stop transit, called the "Metro-Netz." Metro-Netz service is identified by a route number starting with M, and this supposedly guarantees service every 10 minutes or better for 20 hours a day. Metro-Netz service can be either streetcar or bus. Less-frequent local-stop transit, which is identified by a route number without an initial letter. Obvio...

If you are interested in public transport excellence please check out the new Human Transit blog. It is written by long-time transit planner Jarrett Walker. He has shone in his first 2 weeks of blogging so far. Here are a few highlights: Unhelpful word watch: to transfer (he prefers 'to change') Transferring can be good for you, and your city (Don't believe it? See if Jarrett can persuade you.) Be on the way! (aimed at urban planners especially) Chicken, egg (can transport be discussed as a 'standalone' topic?)

Buses may not be sexy (least of all Delhi's buses like the one above). But most cities desperately need to improve their basic bus systems. And I am not talking about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) this time. No matter how much BRT you put in, neglecting the basic bus system will undermine your efforts. Jakarta is finding this. The same goes for urban rail systems. These work best when complemented and fed by a good bus system. Seoul realised this in 2004. Unable to expand its subway, it turned to bus improvements for a dramatic boost to its system. Maybe the only thing less sexy than a bus is bus regulation! But if you care about public transport it is time to get interested in regulatory questions like these : Who should plan the system? Who should own what? What roles are best for the public sector? What roles are best for businesses? How should they be rewarded? What kind of competition works for city buses? Getting the regulatory framework right is at least as important as th...

Vienna's public transport is an example of excellent integration and planning I have long been interested in public transport systems in which a public agency takes responsibility for the excellence of a highly integrated system. This interest was provoked by Felix Laube's explanations of Zurich's public transport system and by Paul Mees' excellent book, 'A Very Public Solution'. I am also interested in the growing trend for such agencies to often delegate operation of most services to business enterprises under service contracts , often with competitive tendering. Examples that I have blogged about include Seoul and Bogotá but many others are moving in the same direction, such as various Scandinavian cities, Adelaide in Australia and London famously. Even Indore in India has created a much-praised bus system with a similar regulatory approach. This year, Singapore announced a shift in this direction too, something which I called for in an OpEd in Ethos Magazi...