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In Turkey, the only city that currently operates BRT is Istanbul. There are researches that focus on different BRT systems in the world, yet there has not been a comprehensive, systematic and comparative evaluation of the BRT experience in Istanbul. There seems to be an urgent need to study this BRT investment, with a particular focus on planning, operation and ridership characteristics with a comparative approach. This thesis analyses the BRT corridor in Istanbul and answers the question whether Metrob&uuml / s in Istanbul is a success or not. In order to understand the criteria for defining success, planning, operation and ridership characteristics are identified based on the previous literature and particularly the analysis of three best practice cases that currently operate BRT / these are Curitiba, Bogota and Mexico City. The study sets the criteria in planning, operation and ridership of BRT systems drawn by previous studies and answers by people who were involved in these projects. It compares the best practice cases and the Istanbul Metrob&uuml / s / focusing on planning and operation characteristics and using primary indicators of performance and ridership. The study reveals strength and weaknesses of the Istanbul Metrob&uuml / s in comparison to best practice BRT cases in the world. The findings provide lessons both for the future extensions of the BRT in Istanbul and for other cities that may consider implementing this transit technology.

Urban economic theory states that transit improvements result in travel time savings and consequently warrant higher rents particularly with proximity to surrounding stations. This research uses the Sheppard subway corridor as a case study to test the established theories by measuring the changes to residential intensification and property values (1) as a function of time before and after the construction, and (2) as a function of distance to subway stations. Two metrics are established to observe residential intensification and property value: Dwelling Density and Value Density respectively. Dwelling Density is the number of dwellings contained in its property parcel divided by property area; Value Density is total property value of a given property parcel divided by its property area. Using obtained property sales data in four identified analysis years (1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006) and ArcGIS, spatial interpolation surfaces are generated to visualize the changes on a geographical plane through time. Dwelling and Value Density scatterplots are generated by extracting values from the interpolated surfaces and computing its distance to the nearest subway station and to major development nodes. The generated interpolated surfaces show a strong increase in Dwelling and Value Density in North York Centre which suggest that (1) planning policies succeeded in guiding residential growth, (2) a time lag is present of which the full benefits of rapid transit construction are realized, and (3) there may be positive network effects associated with the completion of the Sheppard subway. The scatterplot results demonstrated moderate change in Dwelling and Value Density at the Bayview station area and little change for the remaining stations (Bessarion, Don Mills, and Leslie) based on observations up to December 2006. The results warrant a degree of optimism about Sheppard subway’s ability to attract residential intensification and raise property values, especially given that data was analyzed only up to four years after the subway corridor began revenue service. It is recommended that a similar methodology be performed at a later date when the corridor’s ridership and surrounding development reaches maturity. A preliminary forecasting exercise determined that Dwelling and Value Density will rise, particularly surrounding stations that have since demonstrated little change in residential land use.

Emissions from passenger transport causes impacts to the environment and human health. With increasing demand for urban transportation caused by population growth and urbanization new transport solutions are needed. Vectus Intelligent Transport develops a new transport solution with the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) technology which provides individual, automated and on demand transportation. Vectus is currently building their first commercial system at the Suncheon wetlands in South Korea. One of the purposes with the Suncheon PRT system is to reduce the environmental impact on the unique eco-system of the wetlands. The PRT technology is considered a sustainable transport solution due to the fact that it is electrically powered. However, there has not until now been any detailed environmental analysis of a complete PRT system. In this thesis a life cycle assessment (LCA) for the Vectus PRT was performed to identify the parts of the system that contributed to the largest environmental impact and in which phase of the life cycle these impacts occurred, as well as the impact of some system changes. The Suncheon PRT system was used as a ground scenario. All processes needed to construct, operate and dismantle the system were included in the assessment and were used to build a material and energy flow model for the complete life cycle. For the overall system the track stood for the largest impact followed by the vehicles. These impacts occurred at different phases of the life cycle, the tracks during construction due to its large mass and vehicles during operation due to the energy demand. A track made of steel had a lower environmental impact compared to a concrete track due to its lighter structure. By using certified electricity mix the impact during the operation phase could be reduced by over 95 % for most of the impact categories studied. The choice of electricity mix during operation was the single most efficient way to affect the overall environmental impact of the system. Using power collection instead of batteries was the preferred alternative as the vehicle power system due to short lifetime for batteries and increase in number of vehicles to maintain passenger capacity due to charging time. By combining these configurations for the Suncheon PRT system the overall environmental impact could be lowered by about 50 %. According to the LCA a slight decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and increase of emissions of acidifying substances will occur compared to competing modes of transport, such as transportation with cars and buses, due to the construction of the Suncheon PRT. However, during operation minimal emissions will occur at the Suncheon wetlands thus fulfilling the purpose of the PRT. There is also a large potential to substantially lower the impact by choosing renewable power, an alternative not available for gasoline driven vehicles. / Utsläpp från persontransporter påverkar både miljön och människors hälsa. Med ökad efterfrågan av stadstrafik på grund av befolkningstillväxt och urbanisering krävs nya transportlösningar. Vectus Intelligent Transportation utvecklar en ny transportlösning med konceptet spårtaxi (PRT) som erbjuder individuell och automatiserad passagerartransport på begäran. Vectus uppför för närvarande sitt första kommersiella system vid Suncheons nationalpark i Sydkorea. Ett av syftena med spårtaxisystemet i Suncheon är att minska miljöpåverkan vid nationalparken. PRT-tekniken anses vara en hållbar transportlösning tack vare det faktum att driften sker med el. Någon detaljerad miljöanalys av ett komplett spårtaxisystem har dock inte tidigare utförts. I detta examensarbete utfördes en livscykelanalys (LCA) för Vectus PRT för att identifiera vilka delar av systemet som bidrog till störst miljöpåverkan och i vilken del av livscykeln dessa effekter inträffade samt effekter av olika ändringar i systemutformning. Spårtaxisystemet i Suncheon användes som grundscenario. Alla processer som krävdes för att bygga, driva och avveckla systemet ingick i analysen och användes till att bygga en material- och energiflödesmodell för hela livscykeln. För det totala systemet stod spåret för den största miljöpåverkan följt av fordonen. Dessa effekter uppstod under olika faser av livscykeln, spåret under konstruktion på grund av dess stora massa och fordonen under drift på grund av dess energiförbrukning. Ett spår bestående av stål hade en lägre miljöpåverkan jämfört med ett spår i betong tack vare dess lättare struktur. Genom att använda certifierad elmix kunde effekterna under driftsfasen minskas med över 95 % för flertalet av de studerade miljöeffekterna. Valet av elmix under drift var det enskilt mest effektiva sättet att påverka systemets totala miljöpåverkan. Användandet av strömavtagare i stället för batterier var att föredra som alternativ till fordonens energikälla. Detta på grund av kort livslängd för batterier och en ökning av totala antalet fordon i systemet för att upprätthålla passagerarkapacitet på grund av laddningstiden. Genom att kombinera dessa konfigurationer för Suncheons spårtaxisystem kunde den totala miljöpåverkan sänkas ca 50%. Enligt LCAn kommer en liten utsläppsminskning av växthusgaser men en ökning av utsläpp av försurande ämnen ske jämfört med konkurrerande vägtransporter, så som bilar och bussar, genom uppförandet av spårtaxisystemet vid Suncheon. Däremot kommer minimala utsläpp ske vid Suncheons nationalpark under drifttiden vilket uppfyller syftet med spårtaxisystemet. Det finns också en stor potential att avsevärt sänka effekterna genom att välja förnyelsebara energikällor, ett alternativ som inte skulle vara möjligt för bensindrivna motorfordon.

Urban economic theory states that transit improvements result in travel time savings and consequently warrant higher rents particularly with proximity to surrounding stations. This research uses the Sheppard subway corridor as a case study to test the established theories by measuring the changes to residential intensification and property values (1) as a function of time before and after the construction, and (2) as a function of distance to subway stations. Two metrics are established to observe residential intensification and property value: Dwelling Density and Value Density respectively. Dwelling Density is the number of dwellings contained in its property parcel divided by property area; Value Density is total property value of a given property parcel divided by its property area. Using obtained property sales data in four identified analysis years (1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006) and ArcGIS, spatial interpolation surfaces are generated to visualize the changes on a geographical plane through time. Dwelling and Value Density scatterplots are generated by extracting values from the interpolated surfaces and computing its distance to the nearest subway station and to major development nodes. The generated interpolated surfaces show a strong increase in Dwelling and Value Density in North York Centre which suggest that (1) planning policies succeeded in guiding residential growth, (2) a time lag is present of which the full benefits of rapid transit construction are realized, and (3) there may be positive network effects associated with the completion of the Sheppard subway. The scatterplot results demonstrated moderate change in Dwelling and Value Density at the Bayview station area and little change for the remaining stations (Bessarion, Don Mills, and Leslie) based on observations up to December 2006. The results warrant a degree of optimism about Sheppard subway’s ability to attract residential intensification and raise property values, especially given that data was analyzed only up to four years after the subway corridor began revenue service. It is recommended that a similar methodology be performed at a later date when the corridor’s ridership and surrounding development reaches maturity. A preliminary forecasting exercise determined that Dwelling and Value Density will rise, particularly surrounding stations that have since demonstrated little change in residential land use.

Rail transit investments require highest amount of investment costs of all modes and considering the high cost involved, it is particularly important that their performance justifies this high cost and that expectations from these investments are met. Therefore, in the world, it has become an important field of research to study the performances of rail systems in order to assess whether these expectations are met. In Turkey, there is a growing interest in constructing rail transit systems in the cities. However, there has been limited number of studies on the performance of these investments. There are researches on individual systems / yet, there has not been a comprehensive, systematic and comparative evaluation of the rail transit experience of Turkish cities. It is not clear with what expectations these systems are built or whether these expectations are met. There seems to be an urgent need to study these rail investments, with a particular focus on their planning, investment objectives and outcomes. This thesis analyzes the expectations from the rail transit systems in Turkey and answers the question whether these expectations are met. In order to understand the objectives under the planning and decision making processes in the implementation of Turkish rapid rail transport investments, a sample group was selected among the cities currently operating rail transit systems: &amp / #272 / stanbul, Ankara, &amp / #272 / zmir and Bursa. The study sets the objectives in planning and implementing rail transit systems drawn by the answers in the semi-structured interviews. It compares the expectations with the actual outcomes. As the primary indicators of performance, cost and ridership forecast and outcome data are also collected and considered in the comparison. It is found that the main success in all case study cities was the increase in public transport usage after the opening of the rail transit systems. On the other hand, systems performed rather poor in terms of other expectations, such as attaining ridership forecasts, being built within budget, creating an integrated public transport system, traffic reduction, air pollution reduction, improvement of city image, etc. Hence there is a gap between expectations and outcomes.

Abstract The objective of this thesis is to perform the AC/DC load flow and harmonic analysis for the power supply system of mass rapid transit (MRT) system. According to the computer simulation of stochastic harmonic load flow analysis, the mean value and standard deviation of voltage harmonic distortion are derived. The mitigation of harmonic distortion has been proposed by the proper design of harmonic filter. The mathematical model of 12 pulse uncontrolled rectifiers without interphase transformers is derived and applied in the AC/DC load flow analysis. The system voltage profiles and power consumption are obtained by computer simulation with the models derived. The Taipei MRT system is selected for simulation to solve the peak and off peak load of target year, bus voltage and power demand, and the harmonic current injection of traction substation. The voltage harmonic distortion is then calculated for each time snapshot according to the operation modes of all train sets on the main lines. According to the dynamic load behavior of train sets, the stochastic harmonic load flow analysis is executed to find the variation of harmonic distortion. To improve the power quality of MRT power systems, the proposed hybrid filter, which consists of both passive filter and active filter, is considered in the simulation. It is found that better distortion mitigation can be obtained with the hybrid filter by taking into account the stochastic harmonic current injection at the traction substations.

Car dependency has resulted in traffic congestion in the Champlain Bridge corridor between the South Shore and Montreal CBD. This thesis addresses the ongoing debate of whether an inflexible rail or more flexible express bus system is better suited for travel in the corridor. An exploratory analysis of commuters revealed dispersed work destinations, suburb-to-suburb commuting, and public transit constraints for car users, providing evidence that rail would not be an effective solution. Factors known to affect mode choice such as access walking time, cost, and number of transfers were quantified in a discrete choice model of mode choice by commuters in existing rail corridors in Montreal. The model was then applied to the Champlain Bridge corridor under the assumption of hypothetical rail implementation. The projected demand for rail was lower than current express bus use in the corridor, suggesting that there would be no justification in incurring the great expense of building a rail system to replace the current express bus system. Improvement of the established bus system would have greater potential to reduce car trips.

Land value capture (LVC) has been used to capitalize on the symbiotic relationship between rapid transit and its potential land value uplift (LVU) benefits for more than a century. For the public sector in particular, the rationale to engage in LVC to recapture the ‘unearned increment’ is strong. While interest in LVC has wavered over this time, planners and policymakers in Ontario and around the world are increasingly looking to value capture as a potential solution for raising more revenue to fund the construction and operation of rapid transit projects. However, significant theoretical, conceptual, and practical gaps remain in our knowledge of LVU and LVC that prevent the wider adoption of value capture as a strategy. First, a fundamental flaw in applications of LVC is that the value increment caused by rapid transit must to some degree be known a priori to set benchmark levels and ensure LVC tools capture the actual changes in land values caused by the project. Yet despite a rich history of research into the LVU benefits of rapid transit in cities around the world, a method for arriving at more empirical predictions of future LVU beyond simple approximation remains elusive. This leads to a second issue. Previous research into the LVU effects of rapid transit has produced a body of work that exhibits significant heterogeneity in results. Such diversity in research outcomes is due to a singular focus on expectations of LVU from rapid transit accessibility, which has led previous research to ignore the potential for additional land value impacts from sorting into different bundles of transit-oriented development (TOD) based on individual preferences. As such, the results of previous studies consider the value placed on a bundle of transit and TOD characteristics. This context-dependency makes them unsuitable for extensions to estimate the potential for LVC in future transit corridors. To overcome these issues, the present dissertation develops a value planning framework for rapid transit. This is accomplished through five objectives. First, Chapter 2 establishes a theoretical framework for understanding the LVU effects of rapid transit accessibility and TOD. Second, Chapter 3 develops a typology of station area TOD to reduce the complexity of station area heterogeneity and control for such contextual factors in further research. Third, Chapter 4 applies the TOD typology to unbundle the LVU effects of existing rapid transit in the City of Toronto. Fourth, Chapter 5 develops the value planning framework to better conceptualize the drivers of LVU benefits and capturable revenues, the policy interventions to maximize them, and the beginnings of a model to utilize unbundled estimates of LVU in other study areas to derive context-sensitive predictions of LVU in future transit station areas. Finally, Chapter 6 conducts a theoretical application of the value planning framework to the case of a light rail transit line in Hamilton, Ontario, to demonstrate a rationale for engaging in value planning to promote value capture. In accomplishing these objectives, the present dissertation makes a number of contributions to research and practice. However, it also raises a number of questions for future research. Nevertheless, this work presents a significant first step towards realizing research on rapid transit’s LVU effects that is more theoretically comprehensive and practical for better informing LVC planning and policy around the world. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study aimed at examining the social and economic effects of the Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) on various stakeholders in Johannesburg. The objective of the study was to investigate the effect the Rea Vaya has had on users and non-users of the Rea Vaya system. The findings of this study suggest that the Rea Vaya is beneficial in that it provides an option in modes of transport for commuters, particularly for people who were historically disadvantaged and were not permitted to reside in the city during the apartheid era. BRT systems are designed to provide a safe, reliable and accessible public transport system. The Rea Vaya system is aimed at providing better public transport, reducing congestion, on public roads, improving the roads and creating jobs. The findings have shown that the Rea Vaya has not been successful in meeting all its aims. The Rea Vaya has not managed to provide an accessible transport system thus far. Traffic in the inner city has not been reduced as a modal shift has not yet occurred. Since the inception of the Rea Vaya system there has been resistance from the Taxi Industry. Despite negotiations and attempts made by the Municipality of the City of Johannesburg to include the Taxi Industry in the Rea Vaya system, by making them shareholders of the system, the findings presented affirms that there is still resentment and resistance from the Taxi Industry towards the Rea Vaya system. The loss of revenue since the introduction of the Rea Vaya has caused a challenge for Taxi owners. Not only is it alleged that the Rea Vaya has affected the Taxi Industry, but the Rea Vaya infrastructure has caused a number of problems for private car users in the City. Private car users are inconvenienced by the designated bus lanes and lack of road signage in the city. These conclusions affirm that the Rea Vaya is not beneficial to all stakeholders in the City of Johannesburg. The experiences and opinions of users and non-users suggest that the system has a number of deficiencies. However some users of the system have benefited socially and economically. For some of the users the Rea Vaya has created a few opportunities; however the poor customer service from bus drivers and station staff was seen as a setback. Transit Orientated development in Johannesburg has not yet taken off. The government’s attempts to create mixed land use through the implementation of corridors of freedom are in its infant stages. Businesses across the Rea Vaya station found the Rea Vaya to have both positive and negative effects on their businesses. Some businesses found that the development of stations have added aesthetic value, however due to the frequency of Rea Vaya buses at stations, commuters would not wait for long periods of time and this resulted in fewer customers for businesses across the Rea Vaya station. The Rea Vaya system has provided a safe and reliable transport system in Johannesburg. However, the system is in its infant stages and has a number of deficiencies as presented in the findings of this study. / Geography / M. Sc. (Geography)