A Survey for an Additional Bus Service on Colinton Road - Research Proposal Example

A SURVEY FOR AN ADDITIONAL BUS SERVICE ON COLINTON ROAD This study seeks to present the results of survey undertaken for an additional busservice on Colinton Road passing through Merchiston Campuus of Napier University, Edinburg, United Kingdom. This survey was conducted with over 100 students of Napier University (Merchiston Campus). Geographical Information System (GIS) network analysis techniques have been used in the present study regarding service provided by Lothian Bus Company at Colinton Road and the results of survey were mapped using Auto CAD (Computer Aided Design) software application, normally used for 2D and 3D design and drafting. Our results show that out of 100, only 45% students use the buses for their transport. 41% of these bus users alight at the stop near campus, while rest 59% prefer to use the bus which makes them get down at the bus stop at some distance from the campus. 71% of students do not favour an additional bus stop near the campus and are content with the existing bus service which stops near the campus at the holy corner at the end of Colinton Road on Morningside Street. INTRODUCTION A bus service is convenient and economic means of transport for carrying a sizeable number of persons at a time. Buses usually ply along specified fixed routes to facilitate movement of persons living in areas closer to these routes. To ensure convenience of users, buses of different routes generally follow a pre-determined time-schedule and fare charges. On these routes some points are identified which are called Bus-stops. Buses halt for shorter duration on these bus- stops to allow passengers either to board or alight. At both the ends of these routes are terminal stations from where the bus journey commences or ends on a route. Depending upon the convenience and popular demand of passengers, some bus stops are designated as compulsory halting points whereas at some bus stops known as ‘on request stops’, bus halts only when specifically requested by both passengers already in the bus or those standing on these stops by suitable indications. This is done to save time of passengers by avoiding un-necessary halts. Certain stops serve commonly as set-down stages for some or all routes. Fare stages are also pre-determined depending distance or zone based fare collection systems. The passengers are also allowed to carry some baggage having their personal effects which they also need to transport along with them during their journey. As such buses have since quite some time been most common, comfortable and affordable public transport for men and their goods and are used in smaller cities, towns and in rural areas. A lot of money and effort is spent by governments for transportation management in the cities. Smooth and safe transportation facilities in tune with preservation of the environment cause a great concern with the increase in traffic congestions felt in major townships. This has prompted us to seek new initiatives in public transit systems. The complications of evolving and operating a transport system, efficiently and safely cannot be solved by simplistic guess-work and intuition of a few self-acclaimed professionals. The transport infrastructure requirements have to be gauged to be in consonance the pace of development in the area. A reliable, updated, relevant, easily accessible and affordable data collection and analysis can only guide meaningful decision-making. Geographical Information System (GIS) is one such tool, which is employed for integration of spatial and non-spatial data used for scientific investigations, resource management, asset management, archaeology, environmental impact assessment, urban planning, cartography, criminology, geographic history, marketing, logistics, and other purposes. GIS - a specific integrated system of hardware, software and procedure - is designed to sustain management, manipulation, analysis and display of spatially referenced data for solving complex planning and management issues. For Transportation engineering and planning, which involves many parameters such as travel time, speed, road resistance, turning movements, costs, and economic leverage issues etc., GIS technique may provide valuable assistance. The application of GIS in Transportation engineering is now well established. Zhan and Noon (1998) worked out and explored the use of fast shortest path algorithm on extensive road networks. Ali (2003) has focused on the two related issues of employment distribution and access to transit services. Zhong and Huang (2000) present web-based transit information system design that uses Internet Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies to integrate Web serving, GIS processing, network analysis and database management. Steven et. al., (2003) developed a genetic algorithm to optimize a bus transit system serving an irregularly shaped area with a grid street network. Crowson et. al., (1997) worked out a GIS to include the street maps for the three-country service region, the route system, and the bus stop locations. Belinda (2003) found that by using GIS, the analysis of transport disadvantage and accessibility can be possible. His paper provides an analysis of the city bus network in Northern Ireland and assesses the spatial impact of hypothetical network changes on populations residing within the city bus network area. Thériault et. al., (1999) presented a modelling and simulation procedure to evaluate optimal routes and to compute travel times for each individual trip of an OD survey database. Postal codes provide accurate locations within street blocks for each trip beginning and end point. TransCAD GIS software can provide the best routes through a topological road network. The procedure calculates the number of persons travelling on every road to estimate traffic congestion. It is possible to combine GIS and transportation modelling to estimate travel time of urban commuters which can help measuring temporal constraints of households in planning their daily activities. It is proposed to use GIS technique for analysis of one such bus service available at Colinton Road of Edinburg (Bus No. 45) by Lothian Bus Company, running every half an hour and connecting Merchiston Campus of Napier University to many places in the city. A survey was conducted to know whether students of the university feel comfortable with the existing schedule of the Lothian bus services running at Collinton Road or they want an additional bus service especially connecting the Collinton Road to the farthest locations in the city. This survey was conducted with over 100 students studying in different disciplines of study at Merchiston Campus of Napier University. Geographical Information System (GIS) tool-Auto CAD (Computer Aided Design) software application for 2D and 3D design and drafting has also been used to map the information collected using the results of the survey. METHODOLOGY To conduct this survey, first, Edinburg city map was downloaded from http://maps.google.co.uk as shown in figure 1. Figure 1: Edinburg City Map Keeping our focus on Napier University (Merchiston Campus), a zoom portion of the city map was studied in detail as shown figure 2 was downloaded from http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap. Figure 2: Napier University Street map Roadmap of the existing bus service provided by the Lothian Bus Company on their site http://www.lothianbuses.com was also examined as shown in Appendix-A. It was found that only one bus (Bus no 45) plies at half hourly frequency from the Collinton Road and connects the university to rest of the city, from Monday to Friday. This bus starts from Queen Margret University passes through Duddingston Crossroads, St Andrew square, Merchiston Napier University, and Redford Barracks and finally terminates at RGS Gogar burn situated at Gogar Station Road. The Bus route schedule of bus no. 45 passing through Collinton Road is attached as Appendix-B. A questionnaire was prepared next and 100 students studying in different disciplines of study at Merchiston Campus of Napier University were asked to fill it. A copy of the questionnaire is attached at Appendix-C. To know how near and far the students live from the campus, post code query was included. The kind or means of transport used by them to reach to the campus and how much time it takes was also enquired. An opinion for or against the need for additional bus service near the university was obtained or for use of the option of purchase of one’s own car was ascertained. They were also requested to justify their views by appropriate reasoning. An analysis was done based on responses received. The results of the analysis were also mapped using Auto CAD. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The detailed analysis based on the responses received by the students of different disciplines has been reported in this section. The response to the first question regarding their post code to ascertain the distance from the students come from their normal places of stay from the university has been tabulated in Table 1. This shows that 25% of them come from the nearest point having post code EH11 so much so that they can opt for bicycle-ride or walking as their means of transport, 30% travel from post code EH10, and 3% stay at place under post code EH9, making a total of 58% students come from the very near locations to the university. If we consider EH5 to be the middle point, then around 75% students can be considered to be living at places quite near from the university, leaving only 25% students staying far away from the university. Table 1: Number of students coming from different Post Codes. Table 1 also suggests that a big majority of 55% of students stay at very near places (EH 10 and 11) and only 16% of them (EH 1 and 3) live very far to the university. It also suggests that 25% students staying quite farther from the university, especially those 16% coming from post code EH-1 and 3 may choose bus as their mode of transport. The replies to the second question about the kind of transport (Car, Bus, Cycle or Walk) used by them to reach to university are placed in table 2 which shows the overall result of the mode of transport chosen by the students. Table 2: Mode of Transport used by students. TRANSPORT CAR BUS WALK CYCLE NO. OF STUDENTS 8 45 37 10 Our survey indicates that 45 students out of 100 use bus as their mode of transport, while 37 students prefer to walk down as they stay nearby. 10 of them use bicycle and 8 of them use their cars. That means major chunk of 45% students commutes through bus. Car is least preferred adopted only by the affluent; walking down to the university is preferred by 37%. It was interesting to notice that 10% students staying very close to the university uses pollution free bi-cycle as their mode of transport. It is noteworthy that health conscious and environment friendly students prefer walking or cycling to campus. Time is an important fundamental quantity of life, which nobody wants to waste. Therefore, the third question was related to the time duration taken by a student to reach university through their mode of transport. This factor of time taken is crucial for this survey relating to additional bus service at Colinton road, for comparing it with the time taken by a student opting for bus service. For the plan of an additional bus service will only be welcomed if it reduces student’s commuting time for even those who prefer walking. The survey indicates that it takes 0-15 min for only 44% students to reach university i.e. rest 56% students take more than 15 min to reach university campus. Travel time to reach university is 15-30 min for 24% students and 30-45 min for 22% students. For some 5% students it takes even 45-60min to reach university. At least 5% students spend more than an hour to reach university campus. These students stay very far from the university. A Pi chart in figure 1 has been prepared and placed below to show the travel-time distribution of the students to reach university. Figure 1: Travel time distribution of the students to reach university. For the bus users, scenario is altogether different. Only 7% of the total students commuting through bus, reach the campus within 0-15min, i.e. only 16% of the bus users reach within 0-15min. 19% of the total or 42% of bus users reach within 15-30min, while 14% of the total or 31% of bus users reach within 30-45min. Results of this analysis are summarised in table 3. Travel time for 2% of the total or 4% among the daily commuters is more than an hour. Table 3: Travel time taken by the bus users to reach university. Figure 2: Travel time distribution curve of the bus users. The graphical representation in figure 2 above also shows major chunk of students commuting through bus reach university campus in more than half an hour. Although 75% students stay near to the campus, still 56% students take more than 15 min to reach university. The fourth query was about the bus commuter’s use of the bus terminal/stop near the campus. The surprising answer to this question was 59% bus commuters do not use the nearby bus stop while 41% bus commuters use the nearby bus terminal. Response of this question is represented as a Pi chart shown in figure 3. One of the reason could be the bus route they want to follow does not stop at that terminus. So, even if a bus terminal is planned near university, one should take care of the different routes should be connected through that terminal making it convenient for the students. Figure 3: Survey results of use of nearby bus terminal. The most important issue was whether the students themselves felt need of a bus terminus near the university or not. The fifth question with proper justification was put to enquire this. Surprisingly, only 29% of the total students taken under survey were in favour of a bus terminus near the university, as shown in figure 4, while 71% students were against having one such near the campus. The reason behind the refusal was in favour of existing bus stop service near the campus at the holy corner at the end of Colinton Road at Morningside street side. Student dont find it difficult to reach. Figure 4: Survey results on need of an additional bus service. The last point in the questionnaire was about their opinion regarding using/buying a car of their own to come to university. To this, 83% refused to bring a car, while only 17% found use of car as convenient mode of transport as shown in figure 5. Many reasons were given for not opting for a car. High cost of the fuel, lack of proper car parking space in the campus and risk of diving made use of car a less preferred option. As against, modes preferred were riding and walking. Health and fitness were also the reason for not bringing a car. Figure 5: Survey result of using a car as a mode of transport to reach university. CONCLUSION A survey was done to enquire whether the status of the existing Bus service on the Colinton road near the Napier University Merchiston campus is comfortable or an additional bus service is required. Buses were found to be most common, comfortable and affordable mode of transport by most of the students taken under survey. Health conscious students also found walking and bicycle as the second mode of transport. Car was the least preferred option by the students. Bus users are more or less satisfied with the existing bus services. Therefore, a general agreement was in favour of continuation of status quo. However, it was feasible to bring all different bus services make their terminal at Colington Road, it may suit everyone. And the frequency of the buses can also be increased to every 15-20min rather than 30min, which will reduce sufficient amount of travel time of the students. REFERENCES Zhan Benjamin and Noon Charles (1998), “Shortest path algorithms: An evaluation using real road networks”, Transportation Science, Vol. 32, Issue. 1, Pages: 65–73.   Ali Modarres (2003), “Polycentricity and transit service”, Transportation Research Part – A: Policy and practice, Vol. 37, Pages: 841–864. Zhong-Ren Peng and Ruihong Huang, (2000), “Design and development of interactive trip planning for web-based transit information systems”, Transportation Research - Part C: Emerging technologies, Vol. 8, Pages: 409-425. Steven I-Jy Chien, Feng-Ming Tsai, Edwin Hou, (2003), “Optimization of multiple route feeder bus service - an application of GIS”, Journal of Transportation Research Board, Vol. 1857, Pages: 56-64. Crowson, J.L., Leasure, D.E., Smith, R.W., and Worthen, F.P., (1997) “A GIS for Public Transit”, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Corpus Christi Regional Transportation Authority. Available online at http://gis.esri.com/library/userconf/proc97/proc97/to400/pap359/p359.htm. Belinda, M., Wu and Julian, P., Hine (2003), “A PTAL approach to measuring changes in bus service accessibility”, Transport policy, Vol. 10, Issue. 4, Pages: 307-320. Thériault, M., Vandersmissen, M.H., Lee-Gosselin M. and Leroux, D. (1999), “Modelling commuter trip length and duration within GIS: Application to an O-D survey”, Journal of Geographic Information and Decision Analysis, Vol. 3, Issue. 1, Pages: 40-56. APPENDIX-A APPENDIX-A APPENDIX-B APPENDIX-B APPENDIX-C Appendix-C 1- What is your . . Postcode? Post code (...........................) 2- Which kind of transportation you use to get to University? A- CAR. B- BUS. C- By Cycle. D- WALK. 3- What is the time taken from the house to the University? A- (0 – 15) min B- (15 – 30) min C- (30 – 45) min D- (45 – 60) min F- More than 60. min 4- Do you use the bus station near the Campus? A- YES B- NO 5- Do you think that is a need to add new bus service near the university . . . . . .? And why? A – YES WHY? .............................................................. B – NO WHY? .............................................................. 6- Do you think it’s better to use the car (buy a car) to come to the University? . . . . . . WHY? A- YES WHY? ............................................................... B- NO WHY? ............................................................... Read More