Limits of flexibility of public transport On-demand public transport systems seem to be the alternative to fight against the deficiencies of scheduled line services. It is yet forgotten, however, that the supply oriented public transport is the most efficient mode of transport for the main market of the daily repeating major transport flows. Door-to-door transport services can better comply to the needs of travellers than conventional line services only in case of the relatively limited part of the market of incidental trips and public transport in thinly populated areas. The experiments with on-demand transport systems by road, as Teletaxi, shared taxi, dial-a-bus and neighbourhood bus, in The Netherlands and some neighbour countries in Europe have shown that the (too) long reservation/waiting time and the ticket costs are critical for the passengers. The cost recovery , in general, is significantly lower than scheduled public transport. Essentially, the potential market of dial-a-bus remains limited to retired people and transport of ill and handicapped (WVG), may be an alternative for weakly loaded line services especially during off-peak periods, but is rarely able to substitute car trips. The high expectations, which some people unite with on-demand transport systems by rail such as PRT rely, however, on a misunderstanding of their technical possibilities, the safety requirements, transport capacity and economy. The main reasons of wrecking of the proposed PRT-systems during the last 30 years, as Kabinenbahn, ARAMIS and SKL, and tens of other concepts that never left the design table, are described. The assessment can be used to check the feasibility of the recently proposed newest concepts as ULTra in Eindhoven. (Author/publisher)
Abstract