It’s not only about time and money

Urban transit investment can produce wider economic benefits – the problem many promoters often face though, is how to quantify and communicate them in a convincing way.

When making a case for transit investment, the main focus has traditionally been on the increased accessibility and reduced journey times it can bring to users, as well as how it can help ease congested roads.

All of these are important benefits of a new or improved transit system, but what further impacts could better accessibility have on cities? And, what does it mean for the urban area itself? This is a subject that academics have been researching for the last 20 years and now their work is bearing fruit. Our understanding of what are often termed the ‘Wider Economic Benefits’ of transportation has reached a level where the theory and evidence enable us to quantify a set of transit benefits that has previously been ignored.

These benefits relate to the effect that increased accessibility has on cities, largely through what are known as ‘economies of agglomeration’ – the more businesses and people there are within reach of each other, the more they benefit from easy access to suppliers, a deeper labor market, sharing of knowledge and so on. This creates productivity gains that are additional to the public benefits traditionally captured in project evaluation – and usually add between 10% and 30% to the benefits from travel time savings.

Steer Davies Gleave has been at the core of this development. We have helped governments in Europe, New Zealand and Australia develop methods and the data necessary for the quantification of the Wider Economic Benefits. We are also part of a TCRP (Transit Co-operative Research Programme) study team working to develop tools for assessing these impacts in the US.

Now it’s Canada’s turn. Working with Metrolinx, we are piloting the assessment of the Wider Economic Benefits of urban transit improvements in Toronto. Making use of best practice evidence for Canada, Ontario, and Toronto, we are developing a method that will help us understand the full economic impacts of transportation investments in the city.

The aim of this work is to help ensure that the prioritization of public funds is made with the best possible evidence available. That means looking beyond the time and cost savings, in order to also understand how the wider economy responds to transit improvements.

Championing BRT

In just the last 10 years, 97 cities around the world have launched Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems, many of which are in Latin America. It’s easy to see why BRT has been so successful – it’s high-performing, flexible, sustainable, and cost-efficient – making it an ideal solution to improving mobility for rapidly growing urban areas. Since playing an integral role in the design, implementation, and expansion of Bogotá’s award-winning TransMilenio, Steer Davies Gleave has become a leader in developing this low-cost, high performing technology. Below are just a few examples of our work from South America:

Modeling Megabus after TransMilenio
Pereira was the second city in Colombia after Bogotá’s TransMilenio to introduce BRT. The flexible system was designed to be integrated into narrow downtown streets, and its smaller, maneuverable feeder buses are able to operate in mixed traffic. We were instrumental in the route design and infrastructure of the system, and continued to provide advice on improvements after its opening.

Metroplus in Medellín
Medellín is the second largest city in Colombia with more than three million inhabitants. Since 2006, we have been working on revamping the city’s public transit system, including the introduction of Metroplus, a new BRT system, and integrating it with the Metro network.

Guadalajara’s Macrobus
Opened in 2009, the Macrobus runs along a nine mile long segregated trunk corridor carrying 120,000 people a day between 27 stations. We worked with the Andean Development Corporation to improve the planning and control processes and the institutional structure, as well as reviewed infrastructure and the collection system.