Assessment of Public Transportation system in Isfahan Metropolis with Emphasis on BRT lines

The issue of transportation is regarded as one of the most important human needs. Two general solutions are applied today to urban traffic problems: demand management and supply management. Demand management is adopted to eliminate or reduce travel, and supply management is aimed at optimal use of the available transportation facilities. Establishment and employment of public transportation is another major strategy adopted in supply management. The bus is considered as the main means of public transportation in the city of Esfahan, Iran, where it has been found to meet twenty percent of people’s transportation needs in recent years. In order for the bus services to appeal to more citizens, measures should be taken to resolve its problems and enhance its favorability. It has been found that the major problems from passengers’ point of view include long waiting times at stations, delayed and imprecise arrival times, crowdedness, and inappropriate air conditioning and cooling and heating systems in the ordinary bus services. From the perspective of urban management, there are again obvious problems, such as the worn-out fleet, noise and environment pollution, and low performance of the ordinary bus services, utilized less than allowed by the capacity. All this calls for modification and optimization in the current services. The most important problems with the fleet include uncertainty in and violation of the service schedule, long travel times due to low speed, limited activity and service duration, crowdedness, and long time headways. Many of these problems can be resolved via special routes, i.e. conversion of ordinary bus services into express ones. It will then be important to evaluate the bus rapid transit (BRT) services, so that the quality can be upgraded to a high level. The main purpose of this research was to specify the status of the BRT services in Esfahan in accordance with ITDP’s 2016 BRT Standard, the scores of different bus lines, and surveyed passengers’ satisfaction and to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the services from the above two aspects. The results demonstrated that the average score of the BRT services in Esfahan was below the bronze level of quality. The separate examinations of the scores obtained on the individual criteria demonstrated that the criteria pertaining to the stations achieved 80% their maximum values, and those concerning the communication equipment achieved only 20%, indicating a lack of communication equipment in Esfahan BRT services. Moreover, points were deduced on the access and integration criterion due to the lack of integration between the BRT services and the network of cycle facilities, and all the bus lines lost five more points as the horizontal distance between the bus floor and the station platform was more than twenty centimeters, without which the services would achieve the bronze level. According to the survey results, in fact specifying the status of the services from the passengers’ perspective, the average score obtained on the different criteria was 74%, indicating a high level of satisfaction, on which basis it could be stated that Esfahan BRT services were of the silver level of quality. Furthermore, all the bus lines had attracted 21% and 13% of car and taxi passengers, respectively, amounting to 16 and 11for Line 1 alone, according to similar studies. The most important reasons stated by passengers for using BRT services included high speed, discipline, and convenience, in that order. The evaluation and survey results were highly correlated, suggesting a failure to employ smart equipment widely and fully in Esfahan BRT services.