Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems have gained popularity worldwide as a cost-effective alternative to more expensive urban rail systems, carrying around an estimated 33 million passengers each weekday (https://brtdata.org/ ). In South Africa, several BRT systems are either in the planning stage, detailed design, or construction, with only a few being operational (Ackerman, 2015). When planning BRT operations, planners need to decide when to use feeder or direct routes to supplement the trunk routes: this takes into consideration that trunk routes cannot be built to be within walking distance of large catchments of people. This research aims to explore the strengths and weaknesses of two BRT-based network types: trunk-feeder (buses operating inside and outside the BRT trunk corridor are segregated and operate independently) and direct (buses operating outside the trunk corridor can enter and leave it, providing additional services in the corridor). The Rea Vaya BRT system has both 'trunk-feeder' and 'direct' networks in operation and is used as a case study for this research. Rea Vaya routes have three classifications: trunk, complementary, and feeder routes. Trunk routes (T) use dedicated median-exclusive busways only. Complementary routes (C) use a combination of normal mixed traffic roads and dedicated median-exclusive busways. Feeder routes (F) start and end at Rea Vaya trunk stations using normal mixed traffic roads. The approach for the study is empirical and evidence based. The activities of the research are to: • develop a list of observable indicators to compare trunk-feeder and direct BRT networks; • collect data on indicators for trunk, feeder, and complementary routes; • analyse the data using different analytical tools; and • make direct versus trunk-feeder network recommendations for BRT systems in South African cities. Data collection is from four sources: station surveys, on-board surveys, ticketing information, and system data sourced from the operator. In this study, five key indicators (reliability, saturation, speed, load factor, & operating costs) are identified in guiding the comparative analysis. This led to the formulation of five hypotheses to be tested and make reasonable recommendations. According to analytical studies, the case for a trunk-feeder network rests on economies of density where it is cheaper per passenger to operate larger trunk buses on the main streets with high demand. For Rea Vaya, it is cheaper per passenger to operate trunk and feeder routes compared to the complementary routes. This saving is because of using larger vehicles (18m articulated buses) on the trunk corridor to achieve more capacity and costs are spread over a larger passenger number. However, the costs are highest for the trunk routes because of increased cycle times (and long routes), and increased fleet size requirements. From a cost perspective, trunk routes work best for densely populated areas but not over long distances. Literature suggests that the number of transfers that a trunk-feeder configuration require creates several operational inefficiencies and slower commercial speeds due to considerably higher dwell times (DTs). This is not entirely the case for Rea Vaya BRT system. While the trunk and feeder routes have longer dwell times than the complementary routes, the vehicle operating speeds for the trunk and feeder buses are higher than that of the complementary buses. The average vehicle operating speed for trunk buses is 30 km/h; for feeder buses, it is 25 km/h, and for complementary buses, it is 20 km/h. This is because the complementary buses are operated on major arterials with high levels of congestion before joining the trunk corridor. It can be concluded that the potential time savings of complementary routes through avoiding transfers does not materialise as it is more than offset by the slow vehicle speeds on mixed traffic routes. Overall, the results indicate a mixed view with regards to direct and trunk-feeder BRT networks in a South African context. While direct networks have an advantage of avoiding transfers, they are also found to be competitive in terms of headway reliability, maintaining low dwell times at the stations and having a high load factor (during peak only and consistent with the high peak to base ratio observed in South Africa). / Dissertation (MEng (Transport Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / The BRT+ Centre of Excellence, funded by the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF), / Civil Engineering / MEng (Transport Engineering) / Unrestricted

Rapid transit systems often create city developments and raise the property values. Basically, residential property price is characterised by number of characteristics including the transportations attributes. Empirical studies have drawn impacts of transportation in different ways. This thesis studies the hedonic price model to better understand the influence of mass rapid transit systems on the prices of condominium in Bangkok. The research question is "How the accessibility of rapid transit system affects the price of condominium in Bangkok?" The thesis explains the relationship between condominium prices and accessibility to mass rapid transit systems, as well as other influences, using hedonic price model. The research conducts cross-sectional study approach that uses the data with high level of flexibility at a particular point in time. Five models have been used in this thesis including the entire area model, models of proximity to rapid transit station, and sub-area models. Consequently evidences from the entire area model indicate that proximity to the rapid transit systems has a significant negative effect on condominium prices. Besides, the research also points out number of important characteristics that influence the prices of condominium including distance to main street and public facilities in the area. However, the clustered models show that there is no significant effect of proximity to mass rapid transits on condominium prices. The thesis has raised the knowledge and gained better understanding of the hedonic price model especially its application to the property market. The findings of this thesis can lead to an analysis of property values as well as other price model in other field of study.

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.