ON THE BUSES. MUNICIPAL BUS OPERATION UNDER CONTRASTING POLICIES

This paper monitors the progress of a sample of British urban bus operators through the 1970's by comparing their performance with that predicted by a standardized demand elasticity model. A particular contribution of the paper is to identify factors beyond those of price and level of service provided. The factors examined include: physical geography (terrain, constraints such as coastline, river), shape of town, land use, stage of development of area, transport planning (road network characteristics, parking pricing, traffic management schemes, bus priorities), local and national economy, bus route network, service reliability, marketing, mileage operated to demand. The operators selected for study were: Southampton city transport, Northampton transport, Reading transport, city of Nottingham transport, and Newport borough transport. This pilot study of changes in demand for urban bus services is part of a continuing programme of research into public transport efficiency being undertaken at the Polytechnic of Central London with finance from the Social Science Research Council over the next two years. (TRRL)

• Corporate Authors:

  Polytechnic of Central London, England

  Transport Studies Group, 25 Marylebone Road
  London,   England 
• Authors:
  • Higginson, T
• Publication Date: 1980-10

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 132 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bus drivers; Bus priority; Bus transit; Buses; Costs; Demand; Economics; Elasticity (Mechanics); Forecasting; Geography; Itinerary; Land use; Level of service; Marketing; Mathematical models; Parking; Performance; Planning; Policy; Pricing; Public transit; Reliability; Shape; Terrain; Transportation; Transportation planning; Transportation policy; Urban areas; Urban transportation
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• Old TRIS Terms: Bus transportation (Intracity)
• ITRD Terms: 1272: Bus; 224: Cost; 285: Demand (econ); 255: Economics; 132: Forecast; 699: Itinerary; 356: Land use; 653: Level of service; 277: Marketing; 6473: Mathematical model; 955: Parking; 143: Planning; 173: Policy; 744: Public transport; 9073: Shape; 4035: Terrain; 1155: Transport; 8119: United Kingdom; 313: Urban area
• Subject Areas: Economics; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Transportation (General); I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00341452
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• Report/Paper Numbers: Discussion Paper 9
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 22 1981 12:00AM