Analysis Measures to Improve Attractiveness of Bus Services in Large Cities in Emerging Countries

Large cities in emerging countries such as Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, and Delhi are faced with major challenges due to the urbanization. This leads to increase in travel demand and also increase in demand for transport infrastructure, whereas, the supply of transport infrastructure has often been insufficient capacity to keep up with the growth of mobility. As a result, traffic congestion, traffic accident and environmental impacts have become serious problems that related to this issue. To be more critical, these issues constrain the economic growth and social development of these cities because of the increasing in costs to solve traffic accidents, environmental problems, loss of time and inclusion, diminish life quality of citizens. Providing new infrastructure to satisfy the transport demand is necessary; however this will be costly, take a long time and cannot bring the sustainable development for urban. The effective measure to solve problems that related to traffic is to increase the use of public transport by improving the public transport system. Despite of public transport plays an important role in enhancing the traffic situation in emerging countries; however the share of public transport is very small in comparison with the share of private motorized transport. The main reason for this issue is the public transport still cannot maintain enough capacity to satisfy the travel demand. However, the other equally important cause is the public transport lack of attractiveness with the large part of population due to the variety of reasons such as deteriorating quality of service, unreliable and inconvenient, compared with the individual motorized transport that is very flexible and more convenient. The increase in the attractiveness of public transport is one of the most effective approaches that can solve the problems related to traffic and transport. In this thesis, I develop the strategies, which contribute to increase the attractiveness of public transport in large cities in emerging countries. The thesis is divided into 8 chapters. The first chapter includes introduction of the study. The second chapter, the literature review about the factors influencing the attractiveness of public transport is described, which include the factors influencing the service quality of public transport as well as attributes of private motorized transport. The perceived quality and expected quality of public transport from passenger’s point of views are also presented in this chapter. In the third chapter, the literature review of measures to increase the quality of public transport service as well as measures to restrict private motorized vehicle use that being used in developed cities all over the world are described. Additionally, the supportive measures that contribute to achieve higher success for basis measures are also presented in this chapter. In the next chapter, the current situation of traffic and transport in emerging countries are identified. Firstly, the general traffic situation and traffic problems in the large cities in these countries are described. Secondly, the problems and problems causes that related to public transport in these cities are also mentioned. In the chapter 5, the general traffic situation in a practical city (Ho Chi Minh City) is presented. The problems related to public transport as well as problems related to private motorized vehicles are analyzed. Achieving a detailed impression, the observations and a survey among public transport users and non-public transport users have been carried out. Finally, the problem causes and problem effects are described in a cause-and-effect diagram. Based on the results of chapter 2 to chapter 5, an objective system is derived from the cause-and-effect diagram in chapter 6. Thereafter, the “measure analysis” is discussed in this chapter. In this chapter, each measure is assessed in term of effectiveness and applicability. Taking into account general trends and future development of transport infrastructure, a short-term and long-term strategy is developed in chapter 7. The main goal of the short-term strategy focuses to develop “public transport as a competition system”, which have higher the competition in comparison with individual motorized transport. The short-term strategy is developed for the situation that no mass transit exists in HMCC; there are no adequate alternative transport modes besides motorcycles. The long-term strategy focuses to develop “public transport as a priority system” in the situation that the mass rapid transit is operated in HCMC. In the long-term strategy, the measures that give higher priority for public transport as well as measures that have higher restriction on private motorized transport use are selected.