Source: Manuel P. Clasara(1996)
Seoul Seoul is a capital city of Korea, with a population of 10.6 million and 606 Km2 in size as of 1995. Including surrounding cities and Kyonggi provincial areas, Seoul metropolitan areas occupy more
than 20 millions and 11,726㎢. As of 1996 the total amount of trips within Seoul city area was 20.1 millions a day. In modal shares, bus, subway/metro, automobiles occupy 32.2%, 28.3% and 21.5%, respectively.
In Seoul, 2 major modes of public transport are bus and subway. Though its modal share gets decreasing, buses play still an important role with 11 thousand vehicles. Bus services are various by running area, vehicle type and fare (Refer to Table 4.1.3).
Type and Function of City Bus in Seoul (As of 1996)
Type
Routes
No. of Buses
Main Services
Regular City Bus
264
6,159
Run through main corridors and/or local areas
Seat Bus
125
2,317
Run through main corridors
Circular Bus
38
239
Circulate between CBD and local areas
Community Bus
211
1,114
Feeder service to subway or regular bus
Interurban Bus
92
2,102
Run between Seoul and surrounding cities
Total
730
11,931
Source: Seoul City Government, 1997
Since the opening of the First Line of the subway in 1974, Seoul City Government has continued the construction of subways. As of 1997, 217 Km of subway routes are operated and they will be extended to about 280 km until 2000. Average speed of subway is 30 to 40 Km and headways are around 3 minutes in peak hours and 4 to 8 minutes in off-peak hours. Basic fare of the subway, which covers most of city area, is 550 Won(0.5 US$). Besides Seoul, subways are operated in other cities such as Pusan, Taegu, and Inchon.
Additionally, in Seoul, 7 suburban rails, of which line extension is about 388 Km, are operated by KNR(Korea National Rails). With continuous suburban developments, the role of suburban rails is getting important more and more. It is emerging as a serious task to improve the capacity and level of the service of suburban rails.
Singapore Singapore, with a population of 6.81million persons and 648㎢ in size, is one of newly industrialized countries. In Singapore, a large number of cars have increased by an annual growth of 8.8% during the period of 1962 ~ 1973. The country has been forcefully regulating the increase of cars by limiting the number of cars by Area Licensing Scheme. Thanks to such policy, the car-ownership rate has now become about one car per 14 persons.
The major public transport mode in Singapore is the bus. Buses are operated by SBS(Singapore Bus Services), TIBS(TransIsland Bus Services), and CSS(City Shuttle Services). SBS and TIBS operate full-day scheduled bus services, and CSS provides supplementary services. In 1995, SBS and TIBS had 194 routes with 2,321 buses and 48 routes with 537 buses, respectively. A ‘Bus-Plus’ was introduced in 1994 to provide up-market scheduled services for commuters during the peak hours on working days. As of 1995, 3 Bus-Plus companies was operating 14 routes with 63 buses.
Situation of Urban Transport in Singapore (1995)
General Urban Index
Population
( thousands)
Area
(㎢)
Urbanized Area(㎢)
Population Density
(persons/㎢)
No. of Households
(thousands)
2,986.5
647.5
319.3
4,608
1,100
No. of Vehicles
Total
Auto
Bus and Taxi
Motorcycle and Scooter
Truck and Others
642,129
345,432
27,028
128,464
141,205
Situation of Scheduled
Operation Type
Fare
No. of Companies
No. of Routes
No. of Bus operated
Private
Charged for service area
2
242
2,858
Source: Ministry of Information and the Arts, Singapore Facts and Pictures 1996, 1996
4.1.2 Public Transport in Pacific Cities of America and Australia San Francisco San Francisco in western USA has a population of 0.8 million with a size of 121,000 km2. It has about 330,000 automobiles and 15,825km length of highways. Public transport modes in San Francisco include bus, trolley bus, which is operated in downtown only, cable car, street car, LRT, and regional public transport modes running suburbs of the city including BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and ferry. These public transport systems carry 477 million people annually.
The Metropolitan Commission (MTC), the transport administrative organization in San Francisco, is responsible for the management and supervision of 17 transport operating organizations, and of their budgeting and accounting, and decisions on the operation of investment in public transport and roads within the responsible areas. The operating organizations include MUNI (Municipal Railway), GGT (Golden Gate Transit), BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). MUNI manages public transport modes such as bus, trolley bus, cable car, MUNI Metro, streetcar, among others. These public transport modes handle about 2.4 million passengers annually. GGT operates bus and ferry, and carry about 1 million passengers annually. In case of bus among the modes, 323 buses run 854 km on 62 routes. BART is a heavy train system connecting suburban areas in San Francisco. It runs 115 km on 4 routes and passes 34 stops, carrying 250,000 passengers per day.
Sydney Sydney, the capital of New South Wales in Australia, is an old city for Australians. It is the largest city in Australia and the hosting place for the 2000 Olympics. Public transport in Sydney City largely consists of urban railways, bus, and ferry. Urban railways carry over 800,000 passengers a day. This system, which has about 1,500 units, runs a total of 1,700 km and passes 296 stops. The bus system in Sydney carries 610,000 passengers a day, 1.77 million per year. The ferries in Sydney carry 38,200 passengers per day, 14 million per year. The ferry system consists of 26 ships, and 380 crews, providing a variety of services inside/outside the port and in Paramata River. The bus and ferry in New Castle, consisting of 160 buses and 2 ferries, and 386 crews, carry 13 million passengers a year. Meantime, 100 private bus service companies operate 5,000 buses, employing about 7,000 staff. According to a survey carried out in 1986, public transport modes in NSW consist of private bus (33%), STA government bus (29%), rail (27%), taxi (8%), ferry (2%), and airplane or helicopter (1%).
Vancouver Vancouver, located in southwestern coast of the Pacific, is the third largest city in Canada, with a population of 1.7 million. In Vancouver, the transport mode is auto-oriented, and public transport modes include city bus, trolley bus, sea bus and LRT. There are about 400,000 vehicles, and about 250,000 vehicles pass the downtown everyday. 70% of the traffic volume are automobiles, and 10% of them are carpool vehicles. About 194 million people use public transport mode annually, and 88 million (45.4%) of the aged, children, handicapped, receive various types of fare benefits.
Buses, which occupy the biggest share of the public transport, consist of diesel bus and electric bus, running on 168 routes and 13 routes, respectively. About 700 buses carry 106.1 million passengers per year, running about 2,480 km of routes. In Vancouver, in order to reduce air pollution and maintain a healthy environment, in particular, the plan is to ultimately convert all the buses to electric ones by reducing diesel buses. Public transport facilities in Vancouver are characterized as being equipped with a specially designed facility for the handicapped. In all the public transport modes, special seats for the handicapped are reserved and exclusive taxis for the handicapped called Handy DART are operated.
The SkyTrain, an advanced LRT, came into existence along with the Vancouver EXPO in 1986, is a symbolic public transport mode in Vancouver, carrying 17.8 million passengers annually. It runs 24.5 km and passes 17 stops. About 130 vehicles run from Waterfront in downtown to King George in suburbs every 3-5 minutes. Fares of all the public transport system including bus, sea bus, SkyTtrain, are same, and 3 different transport modes are interchangeable. Fares vary depending on time band, such as rush hour, off-peak time, and distance
4. 2 Modal Share and Traffic Congestion Problems
Urban transport in the APEC member economies is as diverse as their economies, and this is due to the difference among them in the situation of urban growth and socioeconomic conditions. Even from the aspect of the transport mode, all modes possible are operated, from the cities relying on NMV(Non-Motorized Vehicle), such as pedicabs, to the cities in Japan or Canada which operate advanced public transport modes. Also, in urban transport management, various policies such as entry charge by electronic road pricing in Singapore, congestion charges in Seoul, area-wide traffic control using ITS technique in Hong Kong, are being attempted through various techniques.
The modal split in cities of the APEC region is also diverse and shows significant differences among cities, even within a country.
Comparisons in Modal Share in Selected Cities
Unit: %
Auto
Rail
Bus
Taxi and
Paratransit
Motorcycle
&
Bicycle
Hong Kong(’97)
11.1
30.3
41.2
17.3
0.18
Manila('96)
43.6
5.4
35.0
14.4
1.7
Seoul('97)
24.6
29.4
30.1
10.4
5.5
Singapore(’95)
19.6
15.6
52.2
5.7
6.8
Surabaya(’95)
19.0
1.1
33.9
…
46.0
Sydney('94)
78
16
6
-
-
Source: various … data not available, - very small or ignored
In case of Sydney, despite of its well-equipped public transport modes including rails, it has a high car-dependence. In Hong Kong and Singapore, it can be viewed that they maintain a relatively stable transport system in that there has been no significant differences in the modal split since the early 1990s. In case of Seoul, car-dependence is getting higher, whereas dependence on public buses is in a steady decrease. In case of Indonesia, as shown in the example of Surabaya, dependence on urban railways is still very low. Most of public travel demand depends on buses. However, most of the buses are the minibuses called Angot carrying 10~12 persons per vehicle, and the city-run regular buses carry merely 6% of total transportation22. In the case of developing countries in Southeast Asia, it is difficult to determine a certain pattern of transport, because modal shares are quite different depending on the characteristics of cities. According to a research report of the World Bank on the cities of developing countries, share rate of modes in the cities of lower-class developing countries, except for NMV (walking, bike, etc.), are as follows at large23.
Bus and Minibus : 50–70%
Paratransit : 5-20%
Urban Railways : 10-20%
Automobiles and Taxi : 15-30%
Comparisons in Modal Share in Selected Cities
Traffic congestion exists in any city where automobiles are run, and the developed countries have no exceptions. However, the degree of traffic congestion which needs policy involvement, is not necessarily fixed. In Korea, where the vehicle driving speed is 20Km/h on main roads, it is regarded as serious congestion and congestion charge can be applied. In Tokyo, in case driving speed is below 10Km/h on highways, it is considered as congestion and the traffics may be monitored and controlled. However, hardly any country has established such systematic congestion control standards.
Even China, where car-ownership rate is still low, suffers from serious traffic congestion. In downtown of Shanghai, the vehicle driving speed of merely 10Km/h often continues for over 6 hours. It is estimated that the social loss from such traffic congestion reaches 1% of GNP, according to a study24. In case of Indonesia, the average vehicle driving speed in Jakarta is below 20 Km/h, and in particular the speed of bus is below 10Km/h sometimes. As a result, the usage of motorcycles by middle class people is on the increase, bringing a vicious cycle that traffic congestion is getting worse.
Traffic congestion in Bangkok is known to be the worst in the world. At the late 1980s, the average driving speed was once rated to be 2Km/h. Recently, the vehicle speed in the downtown of Bangkok is about 9 Km/h, and a vehicle wastes 44 days in traffic jams a year, potentially resulting in loss of 1/3 of total production in the region, according to a research report of JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency). Singapore is a case where traffic conditions in the downtown is good among the cities in Asia. As of 1995, standard travel speed in downtown is 28-48Km/h, higher than in metropolitan cities in U.S.A.
Changing Travel Patterns and Underlying Trends
Travel behavior and patterns are gradually changing, though they differ among countries and cities. Because directions of the change by developing countries and developed countries differ, they are divided into the following two groups for review.
4.3.1 Change in Travel Pattern in Developing Countries
Though there is a significant difference in the change in travel pattern among developing countries, the common aspect is that all the countries are still undergoing urbanization. Change in travel patterns in developing countries is largely subject to the following factors.
Growth of overall transport demand resulted from socioeconomic development
Growth of car-ownership and change in life standard resulted from the increase of income
Physical expansion of city and extension of travel distance
Provision of transport policy directions and infrastructure
Change in the general travel patterns in developing countries can be summarized as follows.
From Public Transport Use to Car-Dependence Although it differs depending on countries and cities, it is obvious that a transfer from public transport to car-dependence transport is taking place. Except for particular circumstances owing to locality, as individual income increases, the travelers’ preference for automobiles to public transport service which is inferior to car service, is a natural trend. With an economic factor, such as a preference for a quality transport service, the social factor, such as the promotion of social position of car owner, can be an important factor for the car-ownership trend. Korea, which has been showing a car-ownership growth of over 20% annually, is a typical example. In case of Korea, development of automobile industry has also contributed for the growth of car ownership. In Seoul, the modal share of automobiles increased from 9.0% in 1982 to 24.6% in 1996, whereas that of public transport decreased from 75.0% to 59.5%. The share of buses, in particular, dramatically decreased from 66.6% to 30.1%.
From Bus to Urban Rail Transit The subway/metro goes far beyond traditional bus services in terms of punctuality, travel speed, and reliability. Therefore, in case an urban railway is introduced for the same travel corridor, it is general that many transfers from bus to urban railways take place. In case of Seoul, the travel share of subway increased from 7.4% in 1982 to 30.8% in 1997, and a large portion of transfers was from bus travels.
Change in Modal Share in Seoul, Korea; 1982-1996
Unit: %
1982
1990
1997
Auto
9.0
14.0
20.6
Rail
7.4
18.8
30.8
Bus
66.6
43.3
29.4
Taxi
15.2
12.8
10.1
Others
1.8
11.1
9.1
Source: Seoul City Government, Korea
From Paratransit Mode to Private Passenger Car or Regular Transit Mode Paratransit was defined and used as ‘a group of mainly urban services somewhere between private passenger transport and conventional public transport in terms of cost and quality of service’ in the early 1970s by the US DOT. As described in this definition, a paratransit mode has the nature of sub-market between private transport and public transport.
In normal transport service market, the paratransit mode is represented as a taxi, and is mainly used as auxiliary means to private transport, with a low share of transport. In cities of South Asia, despite that most of travelers are incapable to own private automobiles or to use taxis, they are not easy to use public transport service owing to poor supply or inefficiency of public transport system. In such condition, various poor paratransit modes, such as jitneys or bicycles, occupy a large portion of travel demand.
