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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.

This dissertation contends that the decision of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and the Toronto Transit Commission to introduce a grid of frequent, all-day bus service on arterial roads in newly built, low-density suburban neighbourhoods is responsible for Toronto’s unique ability to attract suburbanites to transit. Toronto’s approach is in stark contrast with the that followed in most North American urban regions, where auto-oriented suburban built form is considered to make transit unviable, and therefore transit service outside the urban core is typically very limited. The Ontario government’s establishment of metropolitan government in the Toronto region in 1953, at a time when transit remained a popular mode of transportation, encouraged and empowered suburban politicians to pressure the TTC to expand service to their constituencies. In response, the TTC developed a plan for suburban bus service that succeeded, in terms of ridership and financial performance, far beyond its expectations. This success, in turn, encouraged further service improvements and government support for transit, producing a virtuous spiral of service increases, ridership gains, and government funding increases, which stood in sharp contrast with the vicious spiral of ridership declines, service cuts, and fare hikes that plagued transit systems in most North American cities. This dissertation is the product of archival research in Canada and the United States, as well as a series of interviews with policymakers, planners, and activists who were engaged during the period. The Toronto model offers valuable lessons for transportation planning across North America. It demonstrates that it is possible to achieve high transit mode share, even in areas that are not designed as explicitly transit-oriented communities. This means that it is possible to shift trips away from the automobile without needing to entirely rebuild the suburban neighbourhoods where most North Americans reside, an unachievable goal on the timeline required to avert catastrophic climate change. It also demonstrates that the benefits of large capital investments in rapid transit and rail projects will only be maximized when paired with operating funding to ensure that the new infrastructure is embedded in a broader network of frequent local transit service.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Huston John Gibson / Informed and robust stakeholder participation in the transit-planning process gives residents and communities a remarkable opportunity to take ownership of the shaping of their city’s future form and function, and allows planners to design transit networks that serve the full range of citizen needs. Therefore, the degree to which citizens are permitted to participate in the formation of a city’s transit plan has a significant influence on both its final design and its subsequent adoption by civic and political leaders. Concurrent with the influence of citizen input is the role of political strategy, since many urban transit plans must meet voter approval and a poorly-run political campaign can sink even the most substantial of transit plans. In seeking to analyze both the role of public participation and the role of campaign strategy, this study employs descriptive historical research and stakeholder surveys to assess the impact and perceived importance of inclusive design practices, as well as the political impact of a transit campaign’s general strategy, on the voter approval of transit-related ballot initiatives in Kansas City, Missouri. There are two central implications of this project. One is that the failure of transportation planners and civic activists in Kansas City to accommodate the wishes and input of diverse groups of residents and community leaders in the planning process has led to repeated defeats whenever said plans are presented to Kansas City voters for approval. The other is that urban politics and campaign strategies play a larger role in selling transit proposals than many leading figures in Kansas City have realized, and that the city’s unique political and geographic structure requires a more nuanced and technologically-diverse approach to voter persuasion than has been applied thus far. It can be theorized that reversing both of these trends will increase the likelihood of future voter approval of transportation initiatives. In addition to a political and historical analysis of transit in Kansas City, this study seeks to examine whether deliberate public participation in the transportation planning process has a direct impact on citizen support for transportation-related ballot initiatives in Kansas City.

Submitted by Maria Aparecida (cidazen@gmail.com) on 2017-08-24T14:39:48Z No. of bitstreams: 1 José Artur.pdf: 1071380 bytes, checksum: e1992e06fe45627db90b9f36e8a88d84 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-24T14:39:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 José Artur.pdf: 1071380 bytes, checksum: e1992e06fe45627db90b9f36e8a88d84 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-09-21 / This master dissertation presents a optimization mathematical programming model derived from the classical problem of transport, which aims to scale, with global optimization, the fleet of a system of road passenger transport, describing possible routes between each source/target to meet the constraints of cost (profitability) and quality of service. It covers classic methods of solution of linear programming models considered streaming networks and proposes improvements to the canonical model of the transport problem from the perspective of transit planning, and analyze the use of dynamic programming, evolutionary methods and heuristics for solving the problem of minimization of the model. / Neste trabalho é apresentado um modelo de otimização derivado do problema clássico de transporte, que tem a finalidade de dar suporte ao planejamento de transporte de passageiros , com otimização global, dimensionando a frota de veículos de transporte rodoviário, qualificando as rotas possíveis entre cada origem/destino para satisfazer as restrições de custo (rentabilidade) e qualidade de serviço. Abrange métodos clássicos de solução de modelos de programação linear considerados de fluxo contínuo de redes e propõe melhorias no modelo canônico do problema de transporte a partir da perspectiva do planejamento operacional, além de analisar o uso de métodos de programação dinâmica, métodos evolutivos e heurísticos para a solução do problema de minimização.

Until recently, transit data lacked a common data format that could be used to share and integrate information among multiple agencies. In 2005, however, Google worked with Tri-Met in Oregon to create the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), an open data format now used by all transit agencies that participate in Google Maps. GTFS feeds contain data for scheduled transit service including stop and route locations, schedules and fare information. The broad adoption of GTFS by transit agencies has made it a de facto standard. Those agencies using it are able to participate in a host of traveler services designed for GTFS, most notably transit trip planners. Still, analysts have not widely used GTFS as a data source for transit planning because of the newness of the technology. The objectives of this project are to demonstrate that GTFS feeds are an efficient data source for calculating key transit service metrics and to evaluate the validity of GTFS feeds as a data source. To demonstrate GTFS feeds’ analytic potential, the author created a tool called GTFS Reader, which imports GTFS feeds into a database using open-source products. GTFS Reader also includes a series of queries that calculate metrics like headways, route lengths and stop-spacing. To evaluate the validity of GTFS feeds, annual vehicle revenue miles and hours from the National Transit Database (NTD) are compared to the calculated values from agencies whose GTFS feeds are available. The key finding of this work is that well-formed GTFS feeds are an accurate representation of transit networks and that the method of aggregation presented in this research can be used to effectively and efficiently calculate metrics for transit agencies. The daily aggregation method is more accurate than the weekly aggregation method, both introduced in this thesis, but practical limitations on processing time favor the weekly method. The reliability of GTFS feed data for smaller agencies is less conclusive than that of larger agencies because of discrepancies found in smaller agencies when their GTFS-generated metrics were compared to those in the NTD. This research will be of particular interest to transit and policy analysts, researchers and transit planners.

Ng Kam Shing Oskar. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2008-2009, design report." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37).