The TransMilenio of Bogotá, Colombia, is the highest-capacity bus rapid transit (BRT) system in the world and one of the best examples of a high-level BRT system. It demonstrates what BRT can achieve if high-capacity design features and operating characteristics are provided. This paper highlights the different capabilities of BRT as demonstrated by the TransMilenio and assesses the extent to which these capabilities are applicable to BRT operations in the United States. A series of observations is made in relation to the topics of passenger capacity, capital cost-effectiveness, achievement of modal shift objectives, urban renewal, business and institutional models, and politics. The paper concludes by discussing the various issues related to the replication of the Bogotá model in the United States. Perhaps the central lesson to be learned from Bogotá is that BRT is capable of playing a role in the achievement of much wider objectives, such as sustainable mobility and urban renewal, when implemented as part of a holistic package of integrated strategies. Committing to the provision of a network of BRT routes gives the city the opportunity to magnify the mobility and urban renewal benefits from corridor level to the citywide level. The relatively low capital costs that have made this possible, within a relatively short time frame, should also be of interest to U.S. cities.

Despite the potential of congestion pricing to ease the nation’s ever-increasing congestion problems, there is little quantitative evidence of its ability to spread peak travel demand more efficiently over the course of the day. The objective of the present work is to assess the impact of variable pricing on the temporal distribution of demand to investigate further the role of variable pricing as a travel demand management tool. The Variable Pricing Program of Lee County, Florida, was used as the data source for the study. Because of the limited congestion experienced at the program location, the effects of travel cost changes on the temporal distribution of demand could be isolated. It was found that program implementation had a minimal impact on the overall distribution of demand. Demand for peak-period travel remained relatively unaltered, and active peak spreading was not observed. At the more disaggregate level, however, the impact of the program was more apparent, with significant temporal shifts in the proportion of demand within individual half-hour time segments. Further analysis revealed a price elasticity relationship that was consistent with that in the existing literature. A relationship was also observed between the extent of preprogram peak spreading and the subsequent percent reduction in peak-period travel demand after program implementation. This finding suggests the potential to predict the active peak spreading that may result from congestion pricing. The fact that substantial temporal shifts in travel demand were observed in response to a discount of only 25 cents highlights the potential of variable pricing as a travel demand management tool.

This report presents the latest phase of research into public comprehension of printed transit information materials. Building on the findings of a study conducted in 2001, this study investigated in more detail how the general public perform in the planning of a transit trip using printed transit information materials. One hundred and eighty people participated in the study, which was conducted at three mall sites in the Tampa Bay area in August 2004.The study found that there was a high success rate (above 90 percent) in the sample's ability to identify the origin and destination of a specified trip on a transit system map, and to use this map to select two bus routes required to travel from the origin to the destination. These tasks represented the first two stages of a five stage trip planning process. The next three stages involved working with individual route maps and schedules (timetables). It was found that the sample's ability at the third trip planning stage (identification of bus stops) was also relatively good, but that the sample had most difficulty with the last two stages in the trip planning process, with almost half the participants unable to correctly identify the four required bus times using the tabular schedules.The study also tested a range of different route map and schedule design elements. Test results showed that most of the different design variants did not have a significant impact on the public's trip planning ability. However, it was found that separating the bus time information for different days of the week into separate tables had a significant positive impact. The study lists the various problems encountered by participants at each trip planning stage and provides suggestions for potential solutions.Two thirds of participants stated that they were now more confident about using transit following the exercise, and around 20 percent, including non-transit users, stated that they would now use transit more often. This suggests that providing instructions and / or education to members of the public on how to use transit information materials could crease ridership. in

A major criticism of the principle of urban road pricing (also known as congestion charging and congestion pricing) is that it is regressive, namely, that the implementation of a charging scheme is likely to result in the imposition of a disproportionately large financial burden on low-income car users and their dependents, thereby resulting in hardship. A road pricing proposal in Edinburgh, Scotland, was used as a case study to assess the potential for road pricing-related hardship. Hardship occurs when people are denied access to basic needs. A quantitative definition of hardship was developed on the basis of an affordability measure derived from the utilities sector, supplemented by two additional conditions to account for the fact that transportation in itself is not a basic need. By using this definition, it was demonstrated that households in the lowest income quintile already spent an unaffordable proportion of their income on motoring costs, as much as about 40%, whereas the affordability threshold was 32.5%. The impact of a £2 (approximately $4 in 2008) charge on these low-income households would be negligible if it were paid less than once a week but would have a significant impact if it were paid four or more times a week, taking average aggregate motoring costs to above 50% of a low-income household's total disposable income. A simple regression analysis showed that of the five different basic needs identified in the research literature, work trips were the most likely to be linked to frequent congestion charge payment among low-income car users and, thus, the most likely to be linked to an additional risk of hardship.

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