This is a project I did way back during my years at Iowa State University. I have developed my marketing, aesthetic, and presentation skills significantly since the creation of this project, but the core concepts behind this proposal are still very powerful, relevant, and broadly applicable. The original presentation is shown in the image below and followed by a brief description of the system and some new things that I have learned since I made this proposal.
Explanation of the system presented
- It is a bus network with three tiers and some hybrid/appendage type routes:
- Tier 1 – “The Ring” Fast loading highway buses
- Enclosed and conditioned pre-boarding stations
- Buses level with platform and having a high ratio of doors to seats to enable quick and efficient loading and unloading of passengers including those in wheelchairs.
- Operating speeds from 60mph to 80mph
- 5 minute peak service intervals
- 24/7 service.
- Stations are spaced at least 1 mile apart.
- Every station connects directly with a Tier 2 bus station.
- These buses don’t get off the highway so that they can move people very quickly over large distances. Staying on the highway, operating at highway speeds, and pre-boarding passengers are all critical. These features enable just a handful of buses to provide a very high level of service by drastically reducing their route cycle time. Using a highway route that loops around on it self and is located adjacent to a bus depot can almost completely eliminate non-revenue mileage for these buses, making these routes extremely fast, efficient, responsive to changing demand or spikes in demand, and resilient to disruption as new buses can be quickly and seamlessly injected into or removed from the loop.
- Tier 2 – The “Sweeps” Large avenue standard buses
- Enclosed and conditioned pre-boarding stations
- Standard city bus with station platform level design to be flush with bus to enable quick and efficient loading and unloading for all passengers including those in wheelchairs.
- Typically run from 25mph to 45mph between stations with potential to be caught by stoplights.
- 10 minute peak service intervals
- Stations are located about every half mile, mainly at major avenue intersections so passengers can quickly connect to other routes.
- 5am to 2am service except at routes that go to airports.
- It is crucial that these buses should have a dedicated bus lane so they do not get stuck in traffic. The dedicated lane combined with pre-boarding passengers at stations enables the same amount of buses to provide much faster service and moderately reduces route cycle time.
- Tier 3 – “Local Shuttles” Small street small buses
- Sign post bus stops.
- Small city buses, shuttles, or large vans with extendable ADA ramps for accessibility. Payment is done simultaneously with boarding, so loading times are fairly standard.
- These buses would typically run at 15mph to 20mph with
- 15 minute peak service intervals
- These buses start at, end at, and connect with the closest Tier 2 or Tier 1 stations.
- Frequent stops every block or as needed by the local neighborhood.
- Service times could vary by neighborhood needs.
- Since these buses only operate locally, the shorter distance of the route reduces the route cycle time and isolates the potential for loading or driver delays to accumulate and begin impacting connection reliability of the overall system.
- Airport Shuttle (Special Sweep)
- Enclosed and conditioned pre-boarding stations
- Any style or size bus or shuttle will work as long as the entry height matches with the pre-boarding stations for the large avenue standard buses.
- Runs on both the highways and avenues to connect downtown and the Ring directly with the airports so operating speeds vary from 25mph to 80mph
- 15 minute peak service intervals
- Select stops only to connect the airports to the ring and downtown.
- 24/7 service unless the airports are shut down.
- Tier 1 – “The Ring” Fast loading highway buses
Critique of the Presentation and Design
Everything that is wrong with this presentation and how it might not be as broadly applicable in other cities as I originally thought it might. In other words, this is me critiquing myself based on what I have learned in the past dozen years through my travels and professional experience.
- The buses should not have permanent identifying signage painted on them as proposed. Buses need to be easily interchangeable for the sake of standardization and ease of operations.
- The politics of getting something like this implemented are significant due to the involvement of federal, state, and local government agencies. Conversely this may allow for more funding to come from a variety of sources.
- Station design would need to be modular and able to work on a wider variety of hill slopes to be more broadly applicable.
- The stations are just ugly and need to be re-designed.
- It is probably not feasible to integrate a news stand inside the stations as proposed.
- The highway median approach will only work on highways with at least 3 lanes of traffic in each direction and a full shoulder, or highways with a full shoulder and a median strip at least 12 feet wide. Put another way, there needs to be a continuous strip at least 40 feet wide between the opposing direction travel lanes anywhere a station will need to be installed. Newer highways will have no problems with these dimensions, but older highways might require more extensive and expensive capital modifications to make this work.
- Stations are ideally situated on flat ground. The inability to install stations on sloped portions of highway or avenues may prevent stations from being built in the places where they need to be built in more mountainous cities. That said, most cities and urban highways are in low lying and fairly flat areas so it will be applicable in the vast majority of circumstances.
- It will be difficult for bus operators to align the buses with automatic doors on the stations. While bus drivers will get better with time and practice, there is likely to be a learning curve for this.
- All of the bus routes should attempt to loop or drain towards the bus depot or various bus depots while still in service to minimize non-revenue mileage.
- Specific to the Des Moines proposal, a very high level of service is provided to the North West portion of the Des Moines metro area where there really isn’t the need for it.
- There needs to be more criss-crossing between routes so that the overall plan is more networked and reduces the number of transfers that people need to make.
- The blue routes are likely to be too long and some of the farther out portions would likely be more efficient to service with more local neighborhood service until there are larger numbers of people using the transit system.
- While I did address the process of implementing new routes and transitioning from the current system to the new system, I did not address the time required to transition into this system from the current system or the additional operating costs that might be incurred as new buses are introduced to the system and drivers get familiar with them and and new routes.
- The branding sucks. Why on earth did I think the Merry-Go-Round sounded cool?
- The stations would likely need someone to patrol them periodically, and would also need an extensive and expensive 24/7 monitored security system as well as cash removal services.
- Automated doors exposed to harsh exterior climate and salt from road and highway clearing efforts might cause significant delays and disruptions if not designed properly and serviced frequently. These will likely be much more expensive to install than those seen at airports and are highly likely to require more routine and emergency maintenance.
- Highway snow removal efforts might be complicated and made more expensive by the inability to pile snow into the median.
- It would be better to also have some sort of transit oriented development adjacent to the ring stations and have some way for the public transit agency to capture some of the value added to the lands surrounding the stations.
- The airport connectors should be one special route with just four to five stops from the northern airport to the main Des Moines airport in the south that simply links up with the ring at one or two stops as it passes through downtown. Although flight traffic congestion is not an issue at this airport, this might enable some flights to be more flexible about which airport they land at.
- The colors and graphics inside the stations do not match, and there is not a good overall theme.
- The stations need better signage, trash cans, digital display boards for estimated bus arrival times, and system maps on the walls. To be more realistic they should also probably have a few advertisements and some damned people in the renderings! These are spaces for people for goodness sake! The stations look barren and dead as currently depicted.
- Needs more elaboration on the number of buses required, the savings in terms of reduction of non-revenue miles, and various other system metrics to really make the case for implementation of this system and compare anticipated performance to the current system.
- It might be better to change the implementation order to start with some of the less capital intensive sweep routes as an operational test first. After these routes have been proven out operationally those lessons learned could be used to implement the ring which is a more technically sophisticated, more politically complicated, and more capital intensive version of the sweeps.