Bus Rapid Transportation Alternative

Transcription

1 5 Mexico Bus Rapid Transportation Alternative Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum GENERAL INFORMATION Implementing Institution: Ministry of Environment; Mexico City government Head: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo 1 Details of Institution: Address: Plaza de la Constitución, No. 1, 3er. Piso, Col. Centro Del. Cuauhtémoc, C.P Mexico D.F. Tel.: (+52) csp@pumas.iingen.unam.mx Website: Implementation Period of the First Phase of Metrobus: From 2003 to Operation began in June Costs: $78.5 million, comprising $69 million in capital investment from the city government, $5.8 million from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the World Bank, $1.4 million from the Shell Foundation for the initial design and planning of the bus rapid transportation (BRT) corridor through the World Resources Institute (WRI), $1.2 million from the Mexico City government and a $1.1 million donation from the Bank of Japan through the World Bank. 1 Now a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. 79

2 80 VOLUME 20: SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES IN URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT S UMMARY The Mexico City Metropolitan Area is the second-largest urban centre in the world after the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Its 20.1 million inhabitants represent around 18 per cent of the country s population and the region produces 35 per cent of the national gross domestic product (GDP). As a result of such an urbanized area, air pollution is a major problem in Mexico City, with internal combustion engines responsible for around 61 per cent of the air pollution in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. They also generate 44 per cent of the area s equivalent carbon dioxide (CO 2eq ) emissions, which contribute to the greenhouse effect and therefore to climate change. In 2002, the Mexico City government embarked on a World Bank/Global Environment Facility (GEF) project, Introduction of Climate-friendly Measures in the Transport Sector in the Mexico Valley Metropolitan Area, which called for developing a transport system based on confined, bus-only lanes. With funding from GEF, the Government of Japan, the Shell Foundation via EMBARQ (the Center for Sustainable Transport of the World Resources Institute) and the Mexico City government, the project organizers assembled a $9.5 million finance pool and began the Metrobus project with a strong environmental focus. The environmental orientation of the project enabled it to form part of Mexico City s first Local Climate Change Action Strategy. The benefits of the Metrobus project, a bus rapid transportation (BRT) system designed to replace the old buses and microbuses, are numerous. From the user s point of view, it means shorter travel time and safer travel. From the point of view of the Mexico City government, it means the increase in both efficiency and control over public transport, fast and inexpensive infrastructure construction compared to that for metro systems, improved road safety and a reduction in accidents. For the owners of transport concessions, it means evolution into an official business model, better relations with drivers and security of incomes. From the drivers point of view, it means job security and better working conditions. Finally, from a social viewpoint, it means an improvement in the city s image, a reduction in local and greenhouse gas emissions, and mobility improvement. In 2005, the first Metrobus line started running. Since then, four lines have been put in place in Mexico City that transport around 800,000 passengers per day, five cities in the country have similar transport systems and nearly 20 more are planning to develop one.

3 Mexico Bus Rapid Transportation Alternative 81 B ACKGROUND AND J USTIFICATION In the early 1990s, Mexico City had episodes of critical levels of tropospheric ozone, carbon monoxide, lead and sulfur dioxide. Since then, several environmental measures have been taken and policies have been developed to reduce air pollution levels, such as the improvement of fuels, mandatory catalytic converters in cars, mandatory vehicle inspection twice a year, the introduction of natural gas instead of fuel oil in industry, different applications of the programme one day without a car, and the replacement of old public buses and taxis with new models. In 2006, of the seven air pollutants that the Mexico City Atmospheric Monitoring System measures, four were considered under control carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ), nitrous oxide (N 2 O) and lead (Pb) while concentrations of ozone (O 3 ), particles smaller than 10 micrometres (PM 10 ) and particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres (PM 2.5 ) were still critical. It is important to recognize, however, that the number of days above the health standards for ozone decreased from 341 in 1991 to 214 in 2006 and to 154 in While PM 10 data above the standard decreased from 100 per cent to 16 per cent in 2006, they increased to 25 per cent in In the case of PM 2.5, for most days, the concentrations are above normal in different regions. Since the development of the first clean air act in 1991 until the recent recommendations of the last scientific studies, the general consensus is that private-car and microbus circulation in the city area must be replaced with an efficient public transportation system. The Metro is a viable massive transportation alternative. In 2005, Mexico City Metro had 11 lines, 175 stations and 308 trains serving 4.2 million people a day. By 2012, a new line was in place with 12 stations that serve an additional 400,000 people per day. However, the Metro is a very expensive alternative and it receives a very large subsidy: the Mexico City Metro fare is probably the least expensive in the world (around $0.25 per trip). In this context and based on experiences of other Latin American cities, the bus rapid transportation (BRT) system solution for Mexico was borne. In effect, the BRT template, from infrastructure to organization, was developed in Latin America and is a valuable contribution of this region to the rest of the world. The first development was in Curitiba, Brazil, in the early 1970s, where transport planners developed, refined and popularized the characteristics of a system that would come to define BRT: confined lanes, articulated buses, boarding platforms, prepaid fares, the city-facilitated creation of transport businesses and operators payment pegged to the distance travelled rather than the number of passengers. At present, the Curitiba confined-lane system carries 2,190,000 passengers per day and is used regularly by more than one third of the city s population. The other successful experience in Latin America

4 82 VOLUME 20: SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES IN URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT was developed in Bogotá, Colombia: the TransMilenio. Based on these examples, the Construction of Strategic Public Transport Corridors became one of the air quality and transport measures that must be developed in Mexico City. They were included in the Air Quality Improvement Programme (ProAire) for the Mexico Valley (ProAire-CAM, 2002), in the Integrated Transport and Traffic Plan (PITV-ST, 2002) and, more recently, in ProAire Metrobus is a BRT system developed in Mexico City to replace the old bus and microbus system. The first line operates with 100 brand-new articulated buses that take the place of 362 old buses and microbuses. It transports around 250,000 passengers on weekdays. The system has 36 stations along 19.6 kilometres of Insurgentes, one of the main avenues in Mexico City and also one of the longest. It travels from the north of the city to the south in about an hour, half the time that conventional buses and microbuses took, and, for the user, the cost per trip is almost the same as that of the old system. The fare of 5 pesos ($0.38) covers the operation and maintenance costs of the system, including most of the finance payments for the buses. The first phase of Metrobus-Insurgentes, which only represents less than 1 per cent of the total bus and microbus service, reduced CO 2 by 73,000 tonnes, volatile organic compounds (COV) by 144 tonnes, CO by 1,466 tonnes, nitrogen oxides (NO x ) by 35 tonnes and PM 10 by 4 tonnes per year. In 2004, Mexico City chose to begin with Avenida Insurgentes, one of the city s most important avenues. Crossing the city from north to south, Insurgentes intersects many major roads and several Metro stops and is lined by businesses and office buildings. The name Metrobus was chosen for the confined-lane system to link it conceptually to the Metro, a choice that then-mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, announced in August of Construction began in January In May of that year, CISA, a newly formed company comprised of former bus concessionaires, officially received the operating concession along with RTP, a city-owned public bus system. Service began on 19 June At present, the Insurgentes line has added 10 new stations that represent around 9 more kilometres. The Metrobus, like other BRT systems, runs in an exclusive bus-only lane, it stops in stations that have boarding platforms and it uses prepaid fares that enable rapid boarding and exiting. It emulates the performance and other attractive characteristics of modern rail transport systems, but instead of trains, it uses buses. Metrobus transports 6,000 passengers per hour in each direction at less than a tenth of the investment and maintenance cost of an equivalent metro system. D ESCRIPTION To develop the Metrobus project, dedicated personnel joined an implemen-

5 Mexico Bus Rapid Transportation Alternative 83 tation unit at the Ministry of Environment in Mexico City. In addition, an inter-secretarial commission that coordinated the whole project was created, with the participation of key members of Transport, Housing and City Planning, and Environment as well as key members of the Metro and the publicly owned bus system (RTP). With the grant from GEF, several passenger studies were carried out by special consultants. After the studies of demand, two large projects were selected in order to develop executive projects: Insurgentes and Eje 8. Owing to better conditions of the first listed avenue, the inter-secretarial commission decided to start the first Mexico City BRT system with service on Insurgentes. After the selection of the route, a new set of studies was developed on the urban-social, environmental and traffic impacts. The first study was developed by the Colegio de México, a very wellknown educational institution; the second was developed by an environmental consultant firm; and the last one was developed by the Institute of Engineering of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Also, the Mexico City government received technical assistance from the World Resources Institute, which created the Center for Sustainable Transport-Mexico in part to provide consulting services on this transport system. During the development of several studies, the negotiation process with the 262 concession owners of Insurgentes began. The inter-secretarial commission named the personnel who would be involved in the negotiation process. The negotiation commission was headed by the Mexico City Minister of the Environment and the Secretary of Transport. Once the financial aspects had been agreed upon, the main obstacle was concession holders resistance to participating in an unfamiliar system that implied some loss of control over financial and operational decisions. However, between March and July of 2004, nearly 130 concession holders were persuaded of the benefits of the project and signed a letter of commitment to formally integrate themselves into its development. At the begining of 2005, all the concession holders were part of the project Metrobus is a massive transportation alternative that has a new set of regulations and institutions that enable it to be an efficient and sustainable transportation mode. The institutional arrangements are the following (fig. 1): a decentralized organism created by a decree of the Mexico City Mayor that regulates the operators of the system; operators that are organized as companies that have the concession and the service permission to operate on certain avenues (Insurgentes in this case); a private bank trust fund that collects the fares, with a set of rules that define the destination of the resources; and a prepaid system that enables concentrating the collected fares.

6 84 VOLUME 20: SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES IN URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Private firm in charge of the prepay system Fare payments Trust fund Metrobus governmental decentralized organism Operators RTP CISA Users Figure 1. Institutional arrangements for the first Metrobus line. The system works as follows. The user buys an entrance card (fig. 2) that initially costs around $0.90 (10 pesos). The card is rechargeable in automatic machines set up at the entrances to the stations (fig. 3). The minimum fee for recharging the card is 5 pesos (which increased to 6 pesos in 2013).The pri- vate company that operates the system (CISA) collects the cash from the machines and deposits it on the same day in the trust fund. The firm must solve the problems regarding the system. It has a telephone to report problems and offices in some of the stations. Figure 2. Rechargeable cards. Figure 3. Automatic recharging machines. The Mexico City government made the investment in the infrastructure, the RTP buses, the technology needed to read the cards at the entrances to the stations and the equipment necessary for the controlled access. In addition, it gave an incentive of around $9,500 to each of the concessionaries in exchange for the destruction of the old microbus.

7 Mexico Bus Rapid Transportation Alternative 85 It also pays for the operation of the Metrobus decentralized organism. The income of the system is enough to pay the operators and to pay for the operation of the trust fund, the maintenance of the stations and the financing of the CISA articulated buses. For the first line, the vehicles were diesel, Euro 3 articulated buses (capacity: approximately 150 passengers) with three doors for entering and exiting (fig. 4). Several studies were made to evaluate different bus and fuel technologies. Because of the cost and availability of fuels, the final decision was to use diesel. The new lines include Euro 5 articulated buses that use ultra-low-sulfur diesel and some hybrid diesel and hybrid natural-gas buses. Figure 4. The articulated bus. P ARTNERSHIPS The whole project was coordinated by the Mexico City Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Transport, with close relations with the World Bank and the World Resources Institute EMBARQ programme and with the participation of different researchers of the National University and the Colegio de Mexico who developed the social science and transportation models. The close collaboration of all parties involved was a big part of the success of the project. In addition, the Mexico City government worked closely with the RTP (the publicly owned bus company) and CISA (the private firm engaged to operate the prepaid system). R EPLICABILITY This innovative Metrobus system is important especially to other Mexican cities. Since the inauguration of Metrobus Insurgentes, around 20 cities in Mexico have been interested in the replication of the innovative experience. For Mexico City, Metrobus represents a new paradigm in public passenger transportation. From 2006 to 2012, another three lines were set up in Mexico City and the new mayor of the City is planning to develop at least six more Metrobus lines over the next six years. Bus rapid transportation (BRT) is a system that is gaining adepts in many world cities. Owing to the low financial investment required compared to that of other mass transportation systems and the success in operating in some Latin American cities, this system is a big possibility in less developed and developed cities. In fact, in more than 50 cities worldwide, BRT is part of the government s transport plans.

8 86 VOLUME 20: SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES IN URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT I MPACT As mentioned earlier, Metrobus is a BRT system developed in Mexico City as a substitute for the old bus and microbus system. The first line operates with 170 articulated and bi-articulated buses. In the first phase, 362 old buses and microbuses were replaced and Metrobus transported around 250,000 passengers on weekdays. The system had 36 stations along 19.6 kilometres of Insurgentes, one of the main avenues and one of the longest in Mexico City. The Metrobuses travelled from the north of the city to the south in about an hour, half the time that conventional buses and microbuses took, and for the user, it cost almost the same as the old system. At present, Metrobus has 4 lines that transport around 800,000 passengers on weekdays. Metrobus started with a fare of 3.5 pesos ($0.33) in 2005 that has increased to 5.0 pesos ($0.38), which covers the operation and maintenance costs of the system, including most of the finance payments on the buses. First phase Metrobus-Insurgentes, which only represents less than 1 per cent of the total bus and microbus service, reduces 73,000 tonnes of CO 2, 144 tonnes of COV, 1,466 tonnes of CO, 35 tonnes of NO X and 4 tonnes of PM 10 per year. The positive environmental impacts are obviously the reduction of local emissions as well as greenhouse gas emissions. It is important to mention that Metrobus is receiving a carbon dioxide bonus from the World Bank and the Government of Spain after an evaluation of the technology. In 2011, it was accepted as a clean development mechanism project (Project 4945: BRT Metrobus Insurgentes, Mexico). For Mexico City, Metrobus has been the only solution that can transport 400,000 passengers per day on one line at less than a tenth of the initial cost of an equivalent metro system. In addition, such efficient operation of the system means that there is no need to subsidize operating costs, as opposed to almost all the other metros in the world. Since the fare of 5 pesos ($0.38) covers the operation and maintenance costs of the system, including payments on the buses, this makes BRT a genuinely sustainable transportation system: not only does it provide better service with less pollution than conventional buses but it also keeps city finances healthy without incurring the deficit that metros tend to cause. Any negative environmental impact occurred during the construction process of the first Metrobus because around 1,700 trees had to be removed from Insurgentes in order to construct the stations. This impact was mitigated with the planting of six times the number of trees removed, according to the green area standard of Mexico City, and the creation of 15,773 square metres of green areas. Although the removal of the trees caused social discontent, the initiation of the reparation solved most of the problem.

9 Mexico Bus Rapid Transportation Alternative 87 L ESSONS L EARNED C ase S tudy P repared by: It is important to mention that the first few weeks of Metrobus Insurgentes operation were not what the city expected. For the first 15 days, the Metrobus was free; therefore, it took a higher demand than it was calculated to take, producing overcrowding of buses. It is important for future lines to take this into account. In addition, the continual support of the Mayor of the city was very important for the development of the project. Most of the obstacles were overcome by the inter-ministerial commission and the continuing support from Mexican advisers and advisers abroad. Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum Address: Institute of Engineering National Autonomous University of Mexico Ciudad Universitaria Mexico City 04510, México DF csp@pumas.iingen.unam.mx. It is critical for urban planners to take into account that the BRT system is not only the infrastructure but also, and probably more importantly, the institutional arrangements. Also, perhaps the most important difference between the BRT system and other public transit systems is that with the BRT, the user not the vehicle is the focus of the system. F UTURE P LANS The Metrobus Insurgentes was so successful that the city expanded the first line and developed another three lines. The plans are to build at least another six lines in the city. Other Mexican cities and many cities worldwide also have plans to develop BRT systems.

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