Here in Edinburgh the sun is shining and it’s warm enough to open the windows, which I’m guessing means two things: First, Scotland has finally emerged from the last ice age and, second, the woolly mammoths will soon retire to their summer cottages in the heathery highlands.
More regular readers may wonder why I’m now in Edinburgh, given my last post was from A’dam. The short answer is I have been employed (as a transport consultant) with these guys for the European summer. I’ll be here until September, when I will make my way back to NZ via Norway, Greece, and Turkey. Look out for more postcards.
So why should one visit Edinburgh? Quite simply: charm. The most obvious source of its charm is the historic architecture – Edinburgh is a giant opencast mine of stone buildings. And the city’s history is actually quite interesting, at least for someone with a passing interest in what past lessons can tell us about the future.
Just over two centuries ago Edinburgh was the epicenter of the Scottish Enlightenment – a cultural explosion that produced the likes of philosopher David Hume, economist Adam Smith, and scientist James Watt (who brought us the steam engine), amongst many other notable souls.
The jewel in the city’s historical crown is the castle (shown below). The castle is slap bang in the middle of town and clearly visible from most elevated points around the city. It provides a fantastic landmark for errant visitors such as myself, who regularly meander off track. You never feel lost, even if you don’t quite know where you are.
Most of the buildings are stone and some are surprisingly black – a lingering reminder of the coal soot that used to clot the air barely a few centuries ago. For me the soot stains are a subtle reminder of how quickly new technologies can solve seemingly intractable problems. As an engineer/economist I do have a penchant for technology, but I can’t help but suggest that when you look back in history it is technology which, more than anything else, defines differences in quality of life. Whether people appreciate technology or not is another matter (“give it a second, it’s going to space!”).
Edinburgh’s charm is much more than just stone buildings. The city has a throbbing creative heart; in August every year the city is literally overrun with artists partaking in a variety of festivals that taken together are actually the world’s single largest cultural event. The icing on Edinburgh’s cake is the natural setting: Green hills, eroded volcanic hills, and rocky coastlines combine to create a truly gorgeous backdrop for the city.
But how does Edinburgh’s transport system shape up? Before we get into too much detail, I want to emphasise that Edinburgh is just a bonnie wee city. The city’s resident population is around 500,000, so it’s small, much smaller than Auckland (even though it is located within a region that is reasonably densely populated).
Notwithstanding its small size, Edinburgh has an absolutely stellar bus system. Your average Edinburger (who is most certainly made from 100% Angus beef) makes well over 200 bus trips per year. This is four times the rate in Auckland – and actually puts Edinburgh up there with the best in Europe. So popular are the buses that the major (council-owned) operator runs at a commercial profit. Adam Smith himself would be proud.
So why is Edinburgh’s bus system so successful? The most obvious reason is density: Edinburgh is twice as dense as Auckland and denser even than Amsterdam. Moreover, Edinburgh’s relatively uniform density means parking is difficult, even outside of the central city. This suppresses vehicle ownership and creates a larger “natural” public transport market (although the City Council still prescribes minimum parking requirements – BOO HISS, more on this below). Uniform density also means demand for public transport is spread evenly, increasing overall utilization.
Notwithstanding the underlying role that density plays in creating an efficient public transport market, much of Edinburgh’s success must be attributed to good management. I think the main explanation for Edinburgh’s success is the structure of the network, which uses 20 or so pendulum routes.
The pendulum routes operate from one side of the city to the other, travelling via the city centre. They help to reduce the number of lines, provide direct cross-town connections, and avoid the need for buses to layover downtown – which reduces bunching, congestion, and air pollution in the areas where it is most problematic.
So could pendulum routes work in Auckland? The answer is both yes and no: Pendulum routes could work to connect centres that straddle the city centre, for example, Albany-Onehunga and Pt Chevalier-St Heliers.
Once you start drawing pendulum lines you quickly realise how much of Auckland could be connected with what is effectively just one route. And that’s the point – take a one-hour route from start to finish and plonk it on the map with the city centre at the mid-point = job done! Note that the lines shown above are not necessarily the best – I’d be interested in hearing your suggestions for other routes.
On the downside, in a large city like Auckland pendulum routes could end up being extremely long (Swanson to Papakura anyone?). Reliability reduces as route length increases, mainly because there are fewer opportunities for drivers to “catch-up” on lost time; bunching also becomes more common. So I’m certainly not suggesting that pendulum routes are a universal panacea for Auckland. Nonetheless, long routes could still operate as partial pendulums – travelling through the city centre and terminating on the other side, e.g. Newmarket and Takapuna.
Consider, for example, extending the Northern Express through the city centre, along the Central Connector and past the universities and Auckland City Hospital, before finally terminating in Newmarket. If Auckland had been a little bit more proactive about developing this route in the past (which makes good use of infrastructure associated with the Northern Busway and Central Connector) then we may have avoided the need for the $300 million Vic-Park tunnel (which is really about helping North Shore commuters get to employment south of the city) . Sigh …
But getting back to Edinburgh, some of the other good things I’ve noticed about the bus system here:
- High frequency network: Most routes operate at frequencies of 10-15 minutes all-day, all-week, which greatly reduces waiting times. Routes naturally converge as they approach the city, which delivers effective headways of much less than 5 minutes in most parts of the central city area. This is important because frequency (which is inversely related to waiting time) is the major determinant of trip cost for trips that are 20 minutes or less.
- Automatic coin counters: This is perhaps the quirkiest public transport innovation I have seen in my time in Europe – all buses in Edinburgh are fitted with automatic coin counters. You drop your coins in the top, which are counted almost instantaneously before the driver issues the ticket. People who pay by cash actually board almost as quickly as those who pay by card. Also no change is given for cash fares, which probably earns the bus company a nice little extra profit and encourages people to switch to the electronic bus cards. Bravo!
- Quality bus fleet: Lothian Buses run a high-quality bus fleet. Double-decker buses are the workhorse, although single decker buses are used on some routes. Buses are relatively quiet (although not as good as the new Volvo’s operating on Auckland’s Link service). This means the amenity in the city centre is largely unaffected by the buses, even in those streets that experience high volumes, such as Princes Street. Where amenity is low, this is mainly because of the road network (especially the poor road surface), not the buses.
Edinburgh’s bus system receives an ‘A’ for effort. Nonetheless, no public transport consultant worth their salt can visit a city without offering some suggestions on how it might be improved; here’s mine:
- Minimum parking requirements: Edinburgh City Council should stop wasting time with regulations that do infinitely more harm than good. If they’re worried about problems with parking demands spilling over into city streets, just follow San Francisco and manage demand using dynamic parking prices (i.e. prices that go up when demand is high). It’s time for minimum parking requirements to go the way of woolly mammoth. Research demonstrates the negative effects of minimum parking requirements; case closed.
- Rationalise bus stop spacing: Edinburgh’s bus stops are generally too close together. My journey from Morningside to the City (Princes Street) has a stop every 220m on average. Amsterdam, in contrast, has an average stop spacing of 300-400m. The difference is actually quite significant: Implementing a 350m stop spacing on my route would cut out 6 stops and (if we assume that in the peak each stop incurs delays of 30 seconds) and save 3 minutes – out of a 20 minute journey. What other improvement delivers a 15% improvement in travel time at little cost? Extra patronage generated by faster travel times is likely to far outweigh the numbers of people put off by the extra 120 metre walk – particularly when the operating cost savings are reinvested in providing additional services.
- Introduce a peak period surcharge: Even with double-decker buses many services are jammed full at peak times. Rather than increasing frequency, a peak period surcharge would encourage people to travel outside of peak hours and help spread the peak load. King Count y Metro Transit in Seattle has for several years applied a peak period surcharge equivalent to about 10% of the standard fare. The surcharge could be applied solely to cash fares so as to encourage more people to swap over to electronic forms of payment. At £1.30 cash fares are also probably too cheap (in contrast an 1-hour cash fare in Amsterdam is €2.60).
- Improve the pedestrian environment: The pedestrian environment in Edinburgh is not that flash. Roads are designed in ways that allow vehicles to travel too fast. Also, the city has picked up on the terrible U.K. practice of using iron fences to “funnel pedestrians” through crossings. Sometimes these fences are combined with staged, off-set crossings – i.e. you cross half the road only to then make two ninety degree turns before then waiting to cross the other half. It’s such a horrible and bizarre manoeuvre – and something I see only rarely in New Zealand (e.g. Fanshawe Street in Auckland). More generally, a high-quality pedestrian environment has synergistic benefits for public transport – especially where you’re reducing stop spacing and expecting people to walk further to catch their bus.
Smart initiatives such as these could make Edinburgh’s public transport system run even more efficiently and effectively. Of course the fact that there’s room for improvement does not undermine what Edinburgh has already achieved: Their bus system carries high volumes of passengers and operates largely without subsidies.
And to finish on a slightly controversial note: Edinburgh is the best counter-argument to many of the pro-rail, anti-bus comments that percolate on this blog and elsewhere. These people need to visit Edinburgh to see that buses are not an “ineffective” substitute for light rail; they are in many situations a superior technology.
I think it’s a shame that Edinburgh – given its excellent bus system – chose to spend approximately £700 million (NZD $1,500 million) on a light rail project that has run so far over the original budget that it is in danger of being scrapped altogether (not that I have an opinion either way on this – but it does serve to highlight the high upfront risks associated with light rail,which in turn makes me extra cautious about developing light rail in Auckland).
In my mind Edinburgh provides a clear lesson for Auckland: The most effective way to generate high public transport patronage is to develop a high quality bus system. But that’s a post for another day …
*** Thanks to Ross Clark for his helpful comments on transport issues in Edinburgh and Scotland ***
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“Edinburgh is the best counter-argument to many of the pro-rail, anti-bus comments that percolate on this blog and elsewhere.”
Another example of a bus-based system with serious service and very high patronage is the Swiss town of Schaffhausen. And that’s a place with a much lower population density; one that’s more in line with NZ development (11 persons per hectare). Back to Edinburgh, there’s no need to convert bus routes to trams or light rail unless ridership is overwhelming the bus system’s capacity.
Yes and even then you could first try applying a peak period surcharge to spread the load a little.
Having been to Edinburgh often to visit friends and relatives I agree with observations of the effectiveness of it’s buses.
However, don’t forget that Edinburgh is also a major heavy rail hub. It sits at the head of the fastest mainline route in the UK, has a lot of suburban and regional town stations feeding into it, and also features alot of commuting traffic exchanged with Glasgow. Edinburgh Waverly is a major element of why the city works, even if the environment of the station itself has long been the subject of debate as to how to solve it’s design problems.
I’ve heard lots about the light rail disaster as well… I don’t expect to see it completed now that the Bank of Scotland has scuppered so much employment in Edinburgh, and now the UK is so indebted generally. Let’s hope Auckland don’t miss their window of opportunity to get the rail loop completed before we run out of funds in this post-GFC world.
Yes this is my biggest fear around Joyce’s obsessive RoN spending, we are likely at the peak of tax revenue into the NLTF, and he is blowing it all on crazy highway schemes…. It seems likely that the further slow downs of economic activity associated with oil cost as this decade unwinds will make big transformative projects like the CRL harder to fund as they become more and more vital. I half suspect he knows this too, hence his urgency around his insane programme, and nothin’ but delay for the rest….. not that it explains why he needs to do it….?
Yes you’re right but not sure what you’re saying here Tim … I don’t think the rail network interacts with the bus network that much, i.e. most journeys on the two systems are relatively independent. And even so the rail numbers are not all that high (I saw a figure of 20 million per year trips but that could be incorrect?).
Hi Stu – I guess I’m not arguing with the observations of how good the Edinburgh bus system is; but to draw the conclusion “…a clear lesson for Auckland: The most effective way to generate high public transport patronage is to develop a high quality bus system…” is skipping lots of layers of relevant factors.
Edinburgh is highly compact, with very dense residential areas around these bus routes, most of which were built without much parking provision in a bygone era. It has great urban amenity and heritage – living in the city is a stimulating, satisfying experience for many. The highly urban lifestyle this package enables is supported by access to high speed rail which facilitates longer distance journeys, including direct services into the heart of the Highlands for leisure and to London, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Dundee for business. It has direct ferry links to Europe. It has a ring of outlying towns (old and “New”) of which some key areas are served by rail, from which many use the train to commute into the city (I have family in Livingston who have done this for years, despite it being one of the new satellite towns of the 1960’s). That rail does not interact with the bus much does not mean that rail is irrelevant – it means that land use has formed clearly with separate networks, not necessarily a bad thing. Finally, it has several ‘dirty’ neighbours (Glasgow, Dundee, Alloa, etc) who have for a couple of centuries accommodated the offal of urban existence, allowing the city itself to preserve the great attributes that people admire it for.
Don’t take this the wrong way – Edinburgh has got lots right with its buses. But the land use element is vastly different to Auckland, I suggest. Sure we could learn lots, but I can’t agree with the idea that solely optimising bus services will confer the same outcomes for our ‘hood, not unless we rebuild 80% of the inner Isthmus as five storey walk-up flats, a.k.a. Edinburgh tenements.
No definitely agree with you there re: important differences in historical land use patterns and regional interactions. I’m not suggesting our hood will become Edinburgh, just that Auckland could do a lot better by delivering a better bus system. Completely agree that rail is not irrelevant to Edinburgh’s urban form, although think you may be over-stating its importance to how the city functions on a day to day basis … especially when one considers the huge subsidies it needs (relative to buses and air travel) just to compete.
I have had a number of thoughts about through-routing buses myself. I don’t think that extending the Northern Express to Newmarket is really the answer (it would just mean we have an even greater over-supply of buses between the CBD and Newmarket). But certainly some of the North Shore buses could be extended south: perhaps with a southern terminus of Ellerslie to catch all that employment in the Newmarket-Penrose corridor. You’d need to find a way of getting the buses through the CBD really quickly though – Wellesley Street median busway?
Yes I’m open to being convinced that the North Shore buses should not go to Newmarket – but can’t help but observe how many North Shore commuters are travelling there, also the Universities and the hospitals. So I see Newmarket as really an eastern part of the CBD that should be served.
But that’s solved by your suggestion of running other services south to Ellerslie etc. Yes, median busway on Wellesley Street might work.
Absolutely some North Shore buses should go to Newmarket. Just not the NEX in my opinion. We have the 881, the 962 and the 966 that go to Newmarket but they stupidly only operate in one direction at peak times. I would turn the 962 and 881 into ‘normal’ routes, running all day long in both directions – if need be, funded by turning a few more peak time services into feeders to the busway rather than direct services into the CBD.
I see and good point. Yes keep the NEX downtown, but overlay another pendulum route to provide crosstown flexibility. Good idea.
That’s how it used to be. The number 7 bus route from Owairaka/Wesley along Sandringham Rd would stop outside the Civic Theatre. The driver would change the number from 7 to 2, at which time it became a outward bound route to Ponsonby and probably further. QED. It worked really well. Other routes worked in a similar manner.
That’s interesting Jennifer! The only difference here is we would suggest it was promoted as one route, i.e. number 7 from Wesley via City to Ponsonby, or something similar.
One of my pet peeves when I worked at Smales Farm was the lack of a direct through-bus from New North Road/Great North Road (either are a few minutes walk from my house) to the North Shore. Public transport was limited to the insane choice of a bus to town then a walk to Albert street then a bus that meandered for thirty minutes through Takapuna before finally arriving at Smales Farm. the total journey time – which in my car with good lights was no more than 20-25 minutes – took well over an hour, assuming all the buses were on time. It seems to me “pendulum” routes would have solved my problem, at least.
I *do* have an opinion on Edinburgh light rail, as I had a relative involved in its design, who walked away from the project in frustration.
I’m not sure how much detail I can go into, but let’s just say there was a lot of political interference which made the project very, very difficult from a designer’s and engineer’s perspectives.
Compare this to Nottingham’s light rail system (designed built by the same people), which did not suffer from such interference, cost far less, and actually happened, due to a better political environment.
And on the topic of Auckland, I do agree that we should run high-frequency routes in the manner suggested as through routes. This, combined with better bus lanes along roads such as Fanshawe/Sturdee/Customs Sts, will solve a lot of congestion, route complication and confusion issues in the area.
Yes this has to be the missing link for AK bus ROW…. The Bridge to The Central Connector, as much a no brainer as the CRL, but way way easier to do….
Remember Ed is a third of the population of AK and denser…. Stu asks about Swanson to Papakura, well yeah, there is a rail line….. Clearly Ak is better suited to rail than Ed because of both the population and the distances. But of course not in all cases and routes. Auckland is growing too, the UK is not, is Ed?
The answer is yes to:
1. Rail is the best way to connect Swanson to Papakura;
2. Auckland is better suited to heavy rail; and
3. E’burgh is growing, but slower than A’land.
P.s. Apparently population growth in the U.K. picked up recently, which is bizarre given the economic climate.
A lot more Polish builders perhaps?….. thanks for the answers
No, apparently they had an invasion of amorous transport planners from nz 🙂
Well they can have some of the ones out of the MOT if they want, I hear they are quite forward thinking 😉
Sounds a lot like Wellington, to be honest! (If the rail lines were buses instead, obviously).
The light rail argument hinges around capacity. When your streets are full of busses then the next capacity upgrade is light rail then heavy rail then double deck heavy rail. Whilst on the subject of capacity I was dissapointed to learn that the catenary in Auckland will not be high enough to allow double deck carriages in the future. As an aside I am always pleased to experience the superior ride quality of light rail over busses when I visit Melbourne.
Have to disagree with you on both counts:
1. Buses normally win on capacity grounds, because you can run much higher frequencies; and
2. Ride quality is a function of engineering; we don’t put the same effort into our roads as we do put into rails.
Not that it could not be done – you surely could engineer a road surface for buses that was as good as rail (plus you get extra cushioning from pneumatic tyres).
Brisbane’s busway demonstrates just how incredibly smooth such a system can be. Silver bullets don’t come cheap, however.
Stu, You have missed the point. When the street is full of busses then you cannot increase the frequency. We are at thet point in Sydney now. You are not a long way from it in Auckland. The busses are working well in Edinburgh primarily because of the relatively low population.
From what I know Sydney’s problem is their ineffective network (designed around point to point services rather than a connective grid) and poor ticketing technology, which means that most buses have to run downtown. Light rail would not solve that congestion. Keeping cars out might.
I also don’t agree that the buses are working well in Edinburgh because of their low population. That’s not really relevant. Surely service levels define bus congestion more than population? Edinburgh gets 100 million trips per year, while Auckland generates 65 million – so I assume Edinburgh is providing more service than Auckland?
If anything you would expect more bus congestion downtown in Edinburgh, but I think you see less, because the network is well designed. Auckland needs a good network redesign, some more bus priority (median busway), and a downtown bus station. But it don’t need light rail …
I hope I never see a bus station in Auckland again…. nightmare, we’re all working hard to convert the existing transit terminus into a through station; we don’t need more. Anyway Stu I think you really are getting a bit stuck defending your favourite mode, it’s pretty clear that the routes in and the streetscape of Auckland limit the growth of bus transit. Certainly we all agree that bus planning and priority need to improve, but surely the medium term aim must be to work integration and transfer from suburban bus to RTN rail and Northern busway, with eventual conversion of the Northern Busway to rail too.
Sure you can run a bus down a bus lane every few seconds, but what happens with dwell time at stops? You end up needing stops that are five or six buses long with an auxillary bus lane so they can manouever properly, or full stations like the northern busway.
Another consideration is staffing costs, with buses you get about 50 pax per driver at best. Large trams it’s about 200, and heavy rail it can be 1000+.
Not sure that frequency = capacity on such trunk routes that are already plagued by bus congestion.
Buses do not ever win on capacity grounds. You can raise frequency (and pay more bus drivers), but you can also lengthen trams. As Nick R notes, you can only get bus headways to a few seconds if you have long stations with passing segments, or if your segment is nonstop. The former requires a wide right-of-way, as in Bogota; the latter requires a huge station or a lot of branching at the ends of the segment, as at the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Someone mentioned Bogota … hmm that has a capacity of, oh, 40,000 pax/hour – no LRT even comes close. Win to BRT!
Not that I think nominal capacity is all that important – it’s the light rail advocates who bring it up all the time. Actual passenger throughput is much more important, but I’m not even going to try getting that message across …
Transmilenio has four lanes; you shouldn’t compare it to two-track LRT. Similarly, the XBL may carry more passengers to Manhattan per hour than commuter rail, but it benefits from an enormous terminal at the Manhattan end with dedicated ramps. It’s much more infrastructure.
The advantages of buses over rail are not at high ridership, where the capacity issues and the operating costs will absolutely grind you down. They’re at low ridership, or when there’s one major trunk line with natural branching at the ends.
Most of the infrastructure costs associated with electrification is modifing bridges to allow the catenary to fit under. Many bridges have been rebuilt however many more only required the track to be lowered by a small amount. Further I don’t know if the tunnel at Britomart is high enough as it probably wouldn’t be able to be modified now as it is in reclaimed land and has been built over the top of. Once we get the CRL built there would be almost nothing stopping us from being able to have a train on every line every 5 minutes which should be enough capacity for quite some time into the future.
Interesting point Stu raises about subsides in Ed-burgh. I would have more respect for Joyce and his self-avowed business focussed government if the GPS and other actions reflected a commitment to working towards making PT in AK so successful that it could operate without state and city subsidy. Instead the reverse is the case, aiming to starve the sector of capex but happily lift the opex. Clearly this is because the involvement of the private bus companies who go screaming to ‘their’ government at any threat to their inefficient and opaque handouts.
As any plan to get more real efficiency out of AK PT will involve a way better system than currently operates. As well as a commitment to building real systems to make PT work better and for more….. Know in the business world as investment.
Re. Iron fences. Yes this is one of the things that really bugged me when living in the UK! They are a good way to make pedestrians feel like unwelcome pests on the road network.
I have noticed one example of these in Auckland outside Takapuna intermediate on Northcote Rd. I hope they are not contagious.
In a strange coincidence, fences along roads cropped up on Stuff today where the family of the jogger killed in Wellington last week want barriers erected along bus lanes. It’s a bizarre idea, but the journalist must have thought it was worth reporting and a number of commenters think it is a good idea.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5226637/We-don-t-want-another-life-taken/
Edinburgh? Brilliant place. I’ve always had fun there and in Scotland in general. I like these transport travelogues and especially like photos that are scenic rather than strictly engineering.
Thanks for the link Obi – interesting situation.
I like the comment from the Sydney guy “What strikes me is that park benches and trees give the impression of Willis St being an avenue. Trees and park benches don’t create an impression of a busy street. I think there are visual issues which the council needs to address here.”
That is would be my first suspicion too – visual pointers (e.g. tiling) are really important, because they help delineate where the road is. Even so, I must admit I do see there *may* be a case for safety barriers in some locations. But in general they are a sign of failure; i.e. a city does not look after its pedestrians.
There are some annoying fences around the New Lynn transport interchange. Also quite a few around the bottom of Onewa Road.
Regarding Wellington, it annoys me how pedestrians constantly get the blame for supposedly wanting to kill themselves. Sure, they need to take care but so should bus and car drivers. Maybe the speed limit is too high through that section?
You snapped me this time!
The comments for the Stuff article suggest the speed limit is 30km/hr in that section. Commenters also seem to think the buses ignore that limit, although how much of that is reality and how much is perception caused by size is probably up for debate.
The article doesn’t say, but I’d put money on her wearing an MP3 player at the time. My cycling went to pot once I bought an iPod. Changing songs while cycling almost guaranteed running in to someone or something.
Interesting point Stu raises about subsides in Ed-burgh. I would have more respect for Joyce and his self-avowed business focussed government if the GPS and other actions reflected a commitment to working towards making PT in AK so successful that it could operate without state and city subsidy. Instead the reverse is the case, aiming to starve the sector of capex but happily lift the opex. Clearly this is because the involvement of the private bus companies who go screaming to ‘their’ government at any threat to their inefficient and opaque handouts.
As any plan to get more real efficiency out of AK PT will involve a way better system than currently operates. As well as a commitment to building real systems to make PT work better and for more….. Know in the business world as investment. It would be interesting to model the options over say a ten year period.
Dwell time and frequency issues at stops can be managed through a variety of measures:
1. larger buses, e.g. articulated – that covers off your capacity issues.
2. pre-pay ticketing
3. allowing passengers to board through back doors (ironically enough this is usually allowed on trams but not on buses – another example of systematic biases that give the impression light rail has higher capacity, when it’s not at all a function of the technology, but simply how we approach buses versus light rail).
You’re selling but I still ain’t buying…. Buses are horrible in quantity. Killers of place.
So is light rail … 🙂