Principles of successful high quality public transport operation and development

Transcription

1 Principles of successful high quality public transport operation and development WP2: National Report Germany (Draft): Case Study Euskirchen Directorate General for Energy and Transport No TREN/05/FP6TR/S / April 2007 Ingenieurgruppe IVV GmbH & Co. KG

2 The national report document is an input to another document and does not have the status of an "official" PROCEED document The views expressed in this publication have not been adopted or in any way approved by the European Commission and should not be relied upon as a statement of the Commission's views. The contents of this document do not prejudge the final form of any decision to be taken by the European Commission on the contents of the work programme and the launch of a call for proposals. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on its behalf is responsible for the use which might be made of the information contained in this document. Nobody can claim any rights from its content. page 2 of 11

3 Table of Content 1. National Framework (database section 1) Organisational characteristics Legislation Financing Priority of Public Transport in National Policy Introduction to case city 2: EUSKIRCHEN Local context (database section: 2) Contract / concession and operator (database section: 3) Network, Infrastructure and performance (database section: 4) Public Funding, Costs and Revenues (database section: 5) Market analyses, monitoring, marketing and information (database section: 6) Main (recent) measures and results (database section: 7) Main success factors (database section: 8) page 3 of 11

4 1. NATIONAL FRAMEWORK (database section 1) 1.1. Organisational characteristics In Germany, larger cities (so-called independent cities) or counties are politically responsible for adequate public transport provision. For that purpose, each body has to set up a public transport master plan defining the future development of public transport in the area. Concessions are necessary, provided on a line-basis by the states or the respective administrative district. As long as an operator declares his service as profitable, extensions of the concession will be provided exclusively to him. If the operator declares his service as not profitable, the line has to be put out to tender Legislation The respective regulation for public transport operation is the Passenger Transport Act (in German: Personenbeförderungsgesetz, PBefG) for transport on roads and local railways all over Germany. Furthermore, all states enacted own laws concerning the political responsibility for defining level of service in public transportation and financing of services. Thereby, larger cities and counties became responsible for defining the appropriate level of service, quality of operation, quality of infrastructure and quality of information/marketing Financing The general idea is that of a regulated market. As long as an operator is able to run the service on a self-financing basis, he is provided with the exclusive rights to do so. Otherwise, the service has to be put out to tender, but there are only a few cases of tendering reported so far. In fact, most services are not profitable, but the operators are owned by the respective local body balancing the deficit in public transportation. Up to now, these services were regarded as self-financing. However, this is controversially discussed at present Priority of Public Transport in National Policy Recent policy puts high priority on public transportation in large and medium sized cities. However, due to budget restraints federal and state money paid to public transport authorities remains more or less the same as it was in the recent past or is slightly reduced. Focus is put on a more efficient use of existing capacity and money as well as on cooperation and integration of different transport modes etc. page 4 of 11

5 2. INTRODUCTION TO CASE CITY 2: EUSKIRCHEN 2.1. Local context (database section: 2) The city of Euskirchen is a smaller-sized German town with a total population of 55,110 inhabitants (31/12/2005) located 40 km south-west of Cologne (close to 1,000,000 inhabitants) and 30 km west of Bonn (325,000 inhabitants). Euskirchen has a function of a regional centre. Euskirchen is the capital of the county Kreis Euskirchen with about 193,304 inhabitants. There is a clear and remarkable exchange (commuting, shopping, etc.) between Euskirchen and Cologne as well as between Euskirchen and Bonn. Since the area south and west of Euskirchen is quite rural (Eifel and Ardennes area), there is no other relation with a major town. Besides a general decline of inhabitants in Germany (low birth figures), the population of Euskirchen is growing slowly (about 1-2%). The population density is about 395 inhabitants per sq.km. The regional average (Land of North Rhine Westphalia is 530 inh./sq.km). Due to a shortage of development areas for detached houses in Cologne and Bonn, there is a slight movement to the surrounding municipalities such as Euskirchen. Commuters find good railway connections to both centres and there s a permanent shortage of day parking facilities around Euskirchen station (Park&Ride facilities). Euskirchen consists of the central city and 21 suburbs; its area is 140 km 2. The former agro-industrial city has changed to the economic, administrative and scholar centre of its wider region. The determinating sectors are services (41%), trading and traffic (27% and industry (23%). The city disposes of two extensive industrial areas. The structure of the city centre is determined by a compact centre with about half of Euskirchen s inhabitants and 21 suburbs surrounding the centre with between 300 and 4,000 inhabitants such as Kleinbüllesheim, Großbüllesheim, Roitzheim, Stotzheim, Kuchenheim, Palmersheim, Flammerheim, Kirchheim, Kreuzweingarten. Most of the inner city streets and the streets in the suburbs are narrow. The main commercial streets in the inner city inclusive the old market place are car free. Before 1996 Euskirchen had no local public transport network at all. There was a basic local line running 6 times per day from residential neighbourhoods in central Euskirchen to the city centre. The connection from the suburbs to the city centre was performed by regional bus lines which were running irregularly Contract / concession and operator (database section: 3) The public transport system in Euskirchen started as cooperation with the former concessionaires in the form of associated concessions, with SVE (Stadtverkehr Euskirchen GmbH) as the responsible operating leader ("Betriebsführer"). Marketorientated competition is previewed on from August The concessions are normally assigned for 8 years. For competition reasons, all concessions will be harmonized from 2008 on. page 5 of 11

6 2.3. Network, Infrastructure and performance (database section: 4) The public transport network of Euskirchen has a rather dispersed grid (the average distance between the bus routes is 300 metres, the average distance between the bus stops is 300 metres). It is a more or less radial framework consisting of 11 bus lines oriented at the city centre/central station. Two diameter lines are serving the city centre of Euskirchen, while the 6 radial lines are running to destinations in suburbs of the town. In addition to that 3 circle lines are existing. The timetable is basically structured along a pattern based on a 20 min. interval: 5 lines ( ) run every 20 min, 5 lines (860, 870; ) run every 60-minutes with additional regional bus services running at hourly intervals, 1 line (869) runs every 120 min. The timetables of all lines are of quite regular intervals and easy to learn. The majority (about 90%) of the houses and businesses are within 400 m of a bus stop. 11 regional bus lines, school busses and collective taxi services (operating on-demand during evening hours and weekends) complete public transport supply in the city of Euskirchen. For the convenience of collective taxi services passengers pay a little supplement to ordinary tickets. page 6 of 11

7 Fig. 1: Public Transport Network of Euskirchen (Source: Stadtverkehr Euskirchen GmbH) page 7 of 11

8 Fig. 2: Public Transport Network of Euskirchen (city centre network) (Source: Stadtverkehr Euskirchen GmbH) The fleet The bus fleet consist of 22 midi busses (Neoplan N 4011 NF), modern low floor vehicles, 10 m long and equipped with two doors. However, some vehicles had to be replaced in the last years by low floor standard busses in order to cope with the current demand figures. The average age of the bus fleet is between 5 and 6 years. page 8 of 11

9 All vehicles are painted in the corporate design framework of SVE in yellow with blue elements. Busses are free of any advertisement. Each vehicle has air-conditioning and a ticket vending machine onboard. So far, one bus is equipped with infotainment possibilities. Bus stops The bus stops in Euskirchen are equipped with high-level equipment. In order to avoid the broken window effect, SVE has installed a continuous monitoring and maintenance scheme. All of the 265 bus stops have special information panels with scheduled time of departure listed for each bus (sorted by lines), tariff information and a network map. The central bus station in front of the railway station has electronic displays listing all departures as scheduled. Any major changes of scheduled times have to be manually inserted by the dispatchers. Selected, highly frequented bus stops are equipped with ticket machines. Ticketing The following tickets are available (price level 2006): Single tickets: - Adults (15 years and older): EUR 1,80 - Children (6-14 years): EUR 0,90 Short-trip ticket (only valid for trips up to 4 bus stops): - Adults (15 years and older): EUR 1,30 - Children (6-14 years): EUR 0,90 Multiple trip ticket (4 trips): discount of 19,5% on single tickets Day-pass: - 1 adult: EUR 4,70 - Group (max 5 adults, Mon-Fri after 9 h, Sat/Sun 24 hours): EUR 7,10 Season tickets adults: - Weekly pass: EUR 12,50 - Monthly pass: EUR 49,30 - Annual pass (at monthly rates): EUR 41,10 - Monthly pass after 9 h (Sat/Sun 24 hours): EUR 33,50 - Annual pass after 9 h (at monthly rates, Sat/Sun 24 hours): EUR 27,90 Season tickets pupils/students/ trainees: - Weekly pass: not available - Monthly pass: EUR 39,20 - Annual pass, only for trips to and from school during lesson period, at monthly rates: EUR 33,00 - Leisure time ticket ( Junior-Ticket, Mon-Fri after 14 h, Sat/Sun 24 hours, valid for the entire public transport in the Greater Cologne area): Monthly pass: EUR 12,80 Annual pass at monthly rates: EUR 10,70 Special fares not sold by ticket offices: page 9 of 11

10 - SchülerTicket: Annual pass for pupils at monthly rates, valid for the entire public transport in the Greater Cologne area: EUR 21,00 - Job-Ticket, compulsory for all employees of a 100+ company, valid for the entire public transport in the Greater Cologne area: EUR 16,90. Tickets are sold via ticket machines in busses (only single/multiple trip tickets and day passes) and at selected bus stops with high frequency. SVE has an own ticket sales office called Treffpunkt located at the central bus station / railway station. There are no further private ticket sales offices which sell tickets for SVE. Tariff, marketing, planning issues and passenger information are co-ordinated by the public transport association Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg (VRS) which covers the total Greater Cologne area. Since 1987, the VRS has an integrated ticketing scheme for the total public transport supply including rail services except long distance trains. Open boarding The tickets are generally checked by the driver. Furthermore, there is additional control personal. Performance The number of passengers in Euskirchen so far was constantly increasing between 2 and 5% per year. The total number of passengers (boardings) in 2005 was about Public Funding, Costs and Revenues (database section: 5) SVE is a management company only, that means the company is not running the busses itself. Bus service is outsourced to the public owned regional bus operator Regionalverkehr Köln (RVK) and one private company. The total subsidies paid to these operators amount to per year (figure of 2005). The figure results from the real operating costs (personnel, fuel and busses) minus fare box revenues. Fare box revenues currently cover about 43 % of all costs Market analyses, monitoring, marketing and information (database section: 6) The last city bus monitoring took place in 2001: In order to check general customer satisfaction and potential for further development of the city bus network, there was a monitoring by phone interviews. However, due to high costs it was never repeated so far. The transport authority (Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg, VRS) is regularly involved in the customer barometer running every two years a joint action of public transport operators and transport authorities in Germany. However, results are authority-wide only. In addition to that SVE has established a user committee consisting of members of the city council, various transport-related non-governmental organisations and public transport users. The meetings are taking place 2-3 times a year. page 10 of 11

11 Furthermore, VRS is running an area wide traffic survey every 5 years in order to collect data for sharing revenues in the common tariff scheme. The data is very detailed and is always used for planning purposes. Beside that, VRS is currently setting up a tool for market analysis. Data collected by market research is integrated into a computer-based simulation model. Results can be used by all local public transport officials. In order to secure a good customer information, SVE is producing a timetable booklet especially for Euskirchen (there are regional timetable publications produced by the VRS) which is distributed to all households in Euskirchen since the beginning of the city bus network. The time-table booklet is published once year in September (pocket-sized, 140 pages). It includes the entire public transport supply (bus and rail) in the City of Euskirchen (city bus lines, regional bus lines and local/regional railway services). The timetable includes a route map (cf. map 2). It is distributed to all households in Euskirchen free of charge and can be picked-up at SVE s customer service centre at the station. Furthermore, SVE has a website presenting their entire service as well as the company itself ( The website is also linked to the computer based multilingual trip planning system called Auskunft-Service-System, ASS of the public transport association VRS. ASS covers the entire public transport supply of the VRS area as well as the entire state of North Rhine Westphalia. Alternatively, ASS is directly accessible via Internet and provides detailed information on pt routes (door-to-door) and fares and assists you in finding the optimal ticket. ASS gives map based information and guides to the suggested transit stop. ASS is also accessible via mobile phone Main (recent) measures and results (database section: 7) The main measures were: remodelling the pt-system (new bus lines, rerouting of lines or courses), introduction of new tariff-elements (e.g. for scholars and elderly). The effects were increasing revenues, while the number of passengers increased also, but on a lower level. However, the measures contributed to decrease the operational deficit Main success factors (database section: 8) The main success factors of the Euskirchen city bus system are: 1. New system with high frequencies and reliability. 2. New comfortable buses and a new bus stop infrastructure. 3. Attractive tariff system. page 11 of 11