Claire Rusin, Geeta Kumar, Tom van Drempt, Matthew Goganovski

1. C. Rusin and G. Kumar
Spatial presentation
of PTIPS data for
Bus Priority Planning
July 2016

2. OUTLINE
Introduction (the story)
The bus priority story
Data analysis
Geospatial analysis
Interpretation of data
Presentation of analysis
Project outcomes
Next steps

3. Sydney’s bus network:
 13 bus contract regions
 Over 600 bus routes
 In the vicinity of 370 million
bus passengers over a
year
 2.54 billion passenger
kilometres in 2015 (1.58
billion in Melbourne)
CONTEXT: ABOUT SYDNEY BUS SERVICES

4. Bus priority in Sydney
 600 bus routes, thousands of services each day
 Over 1 million passengers transported per day
SYDNEY’S BUS FUTURE (TFNSW 2013)
 ‘Simpler, faster, better bus services’:
 ‘turn up and go’ services
 Rapid services av. speed above 25 km/hr
 Reliability of services (to timetable)
 Tiers of the bus network:
 Rapid routes (efficiency, linking centres)
 Suburban routes (frequency)
 Local routes (coverage)
 Issues affecting bus efficiency:
 Competing demands for road space
 Constrained by congested road networks
THE BUS PRIORITY STORY
A B
Rapid
Suburban
Local

5. CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE
But what happens when Sydney’s roads look like this?

6. BUS PRIORITY IN SYDNEY
Bus priority story – what do we want?
 Bus network which is reliable, efficiency,
understandable
 NSW Premiere’s target for 90% of peak travel
on road routes is on time
 Partner with NSW Government’s investment
strategy
 Confidence in where to spend
Task: Develop analysis tool for analysing data
and identifying corridor pinchpoints.

7. Transport for NSW has commissioned several pinch points analysis for improved
bus priority infrastructure, along several corridors.
 Using the Public Transport Information and Priority System (PTIPS)
PTIPS

8. Pinch points analysis in the bigger picture:
Justification for bus priority and corridor efficiency improvements…
 Clear understanding of bus corridor pinchpoints
PROJECT FLOW CHART
INTRODUCTION
Identify
problem
corridor
Investigation
and
assessment
Options
evaluation
Corridor
performance
and options
report
Design of
infrastructure
solution
PTIPS analysis to
understand pinch points

9. The task objective:
Clear illustration and understanding of corridor pinch
points (problem areas)

10. DATA ANALYSIS
Case study: Northern
Beaches (Neutral Bay to
Mona Vale)
Over 820,000 bus trips
(over 50 routes), 30kms or
corridor.
Local issues:
 Traffic congestion
 Weekend travel time
issues
 Kerbside parking
 Passenger congestion at
stops
 Narrow lanes
 Inconsistent bus priority
infrastructure
Identified as a priority Rapid Bus
Corridor in Sydney’s Bus Future
(2013)

11. DATA ANALYSIS
Task strategy:
Lessons learned:
 Know what your end result should look like
 Template MS Excel, copy-paste data sets, automated analysis
 GIS analysis – good for large data analysis
 Avoid taking averages of averages (use first principles)
1. Stop-by-
stop analysis
2. time-point
analysis

12. GEO-SPATIAL ANALYSIS
Time point data analysis
 Finer-grained data, identification of specific problem locations
 Larger volume of data to analyse
 GIS is an effective application to analyse and visualise speed and
variability results.
 Method:
 1: Processing raw PTIPs data into format, excluding irrelevant and
erroneous data.
 2: Segmented the bus route into sections (106 sections, 150-170m)
 3: Data imported and mapped using x,y co-ordinates
 4: Identify northbound/southbound routes and data outside of corridor
excluded

13. Geeta Kumar

14. GEO-SPATIAL ANALYSIS
Time point data analysis
Data imported and mapped using x,y
co-ordinates
 5: Calculated average travel times
for each section, determined by
interpolating the times at which the
bus arrived at the segment ends.
 6: Analysis was visualized on a
map.

15. GEO-SPATIAL TIME POINT ANALYSIS
GIS MAP

16. INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Stop-based data analysis
Comparing two metrics: Average Speed and Average variation
Consider whole corridor – to find pinch points.
Pinchpoint
Pinchpoint

17. INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Stop-based data analysis
Pinchpoint
Pinchpoint
 AM Peak
 Inbound services
 Between Sydney
Road, Balgowlah and
Sydney CBD
 Comparison of All
stops and Express
services

18. VALIDATION OF ANALYSIS
Inbound traffic, PM period,
Military Road at Wycombe
Road (Neutral Bay) - facing
West
Bunching of services: buses
delaying buses
Inbound (Neutral Bay)

19. VALIDATION OF ANALYSIS
Outbound traffic, Military
Road at Murdoch Street
(Cremorne)
Inbound traffic, PM
period, Military Road -
facing West
Bus lane free

20. PRESENTATION OF ANALYSIS
Time point analysis (Map with colour-coded sections)
 High level of detail
 Efficient analysis through GIS
 Identification of specific pinch point locations
 Visual presentation of corridor performance metrics
 Map – easy to understand
Stop-stop analysis (graphical presentation)
 Best use of available data
 Graphical analysis efficient to produce
 Connection between performance metrics and locations
 Logic for pinch point identification is clear
Which is better?

21. OTHER ASSESSMENT TOOLS
 Opal card origin-destination data analysis
 Other ticketing data and service type comparisons (all stop versus limited
stops)
 Busway vehicle flow and passenger capacity analysis
 Current flow vs optimal capacity – efficiency enhancements
 Options assessment:
Detailed
assessment
Preliminary
investigation
Strategic
review
• Toolkit of options
• TWG review
• SWOT assessment
• Preliminary capacity
investigation
• Modelling
• Multi-criteria assessment

22. PROJECT OUTCOMES
Tailor-made approach to measuring and understanding pinchpoints.
Informed improvements to bus corridor efficiency:
 New bus lanes and converted lanes to bus priority
 Fewer bus stops
 Bus platforms next to stops or indented bays
 Extended bus lane times
 Removal of roadside inhibitors (e.g. trees)
 Parking removal and adjacent street parking improvements
Opportunities to use the analysis in various stages of project lifecycle.
Transport NSW expressed satisfaction with the outputs:
 Understandable
 Reliable basis for justifying planning & investment
 Enables specific response to actual corridor issues

23. NEXT STEPS
 Inputs into broader study on Northern Beaches corridor performance and
opportunities investigation
 Previously this work has fed into business cases for corridor improvements
 Creating a stream-lined data analysis service for our clients – well tested
and proven
 Combine with other tested analysis methods and develop a toolkit for
corridor performance analysis, option development and assessment
 Opportunities to use method within Auckland and New Zealand
comparable transport markets

24. The Big Picture
LAST WORDS
Source: Daily Telegraph, “Frustrated commuters want express service”, Dec 2015
(Photo: Justin Sanson)
“… if we want to reduce our reliance on private cars we need better and
more frequent public transport options.” The Hills Mayor, Michelle Byrne

25. Questions?
Thank you!
Photo source: SMH 2014 The Military-Spit-Pittwater bus corridor