Selection of case study area

Australia provides a suitable context for selecting a case study area for the purpose of this particular study, largely due to its heavily car-oriented transport system across the metropolitan areas and as such, the challenges posited for promoting more sustainable urban transport (Cosgrove, 2011). To better comprehend such challenges, a brief overview of the historical background of Australian cities’ car dependency is presented as follows.

Australia’s car dependence began to take shape since the end of the Second World War (WWII), or 1945 (Cosgrove, 2011). A major immigration from Europe to Australia shortly after the WWII has been identified as the primary factor that triggered the development of car dependence within Australia (Frost and Dingle, 1995; Berry, 1999; Troy, 2004).

Following the post-war immigration, there had been 38, 47 and 47 per cent population growth for Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide respectively and to a lesser extent for other Australian cities between 1945 and 1961. Within the same time span, a 73 percent increase in national labour force was achieved, and falling to just under 50 per cent in the 1960s and 1970s (Frost and Dingle, 1995).

The drastic growth in population and labour force helped lay down an economic foundation that supported a low-density urbanisation process for years to come (Troy, 2004). As a result, many Australian cities had transformed from pre-war ‘tightly knit layouts’ surrounding transit nodes to a more dispersed urban form that remains essentially the same to date (Davison, 2006; Troy, 2004). This urbanisation process presented cars a much more ideal alternative to public transport, in particular tramways as a prevailing transit mode before the WWII, to fulfil people’s daily travel needs (Newman et al., 1995; Cosgrove, 2011). Between 1945 and late 1960s, motor vehicle ownership had grown by 5 times, from one vehicle per 8.7 persons to one per 2.8 persons (Frost and Dingle, 1995). Under the pressure exerted by the growing motorisation, most cities (except Melbourne) closed their tramway networks

68 between 1950s and 1960s to allocate more road space to personal motorised transport (Frost and Dingle, 1995). Despite a gradually ceasing trend of car ownership since the 1970s until today, irreversible has been the dominance of car as a transport mode across the major Australian cities (Cosgrove, 2011; Hensher, 1998).

Apart from a car-oriented base laid by the post-war population and urban growth, Australia’s transport policy has to some extent facilitated, if not encourage, the formation of its car dependence. Through comparing 43 dedicated transport strategies published for the five largest Australian cities (i.e., Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide) between the first one (published in 1965 in Brisbane) and 2010, Bray et al (2011) identified similar evolving trajectories of transport policy across the five cities. The first discernible stage is between 1965 and 1974, wherein transport planning was made and implemented typically based on technical analysis and prediction of transport demand in adherence to the urban master plans. A continuing plunge of public transport mode share and increase of car share were observed across the same time span (Cosgrove, 2011). The second stage (roughly between 1980s and early 1990s) was characterised by a more ‘integrated’

approach, which placed more emphasis on the integration between land-use and transport planning. As a result the drastic changes of public transport and car shares appeared to cease (Cosgrove, 2011).

The last stage (from late 1980s and onwards) was marked by the prevailing notion of travel demand management in hopes of achieving tangible reduction of private car use and promotion of more sustainable urban transport. Notably, car parking levies have been introduced in several cities including Sydney, Melbourne and Perth (Bray et al., 2011). A number of voluntary behavioural change programs have also been initiated in certain selected suburbs of Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane (Freer et al., 2010; Taylor, 2007). With an apparent dedication to reversing the car-dependence of governments, a marginal increase of public transport share and decrease of private car use was achieved in the past five to ten years (Cosgrove, 2011). Nonetheless, considering the path dependence associated with Australia’s suburbia and car-oriented culture, the challenge of promoting public transport (including BRT) in Australian cities remains critical.

Currently, there are four existing BRT systems located in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney (Currie and Delbosc, 2010), from which a case study area can be selected to fulfil the research goal of this study. The selection of case study is based on the comparisons of the four Australian cities in terms of urban demographic (e.g., population

69 and density) and transport context (e.g., car ownership, UPT system and usage) as well as the characteristics of existing BRT systems (e.g., infrastructure, service features).

Table 4.1 Selected travel and spatial features for Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane Sydney Melbourne Adelaide Brisbane Overall population (in Millions) 4.07 3.99 1.20 2.04 Population density 2009). All four cities are state capitals with population size over one million. The population and employment densities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are at a similar level, whilst higher densities are observed in Adelaide. The vehicle ownership of the four cities is at a similar level as well (all above 85% except Sydney’s indicator just below this level—84.9%).

Furthermore, bus and railway serve as the backbone component of the UPT systems of the four cities, accounting for over 90% of all UPT trips made across the four cities (BITRE, 2009).

Comparing the UPT modal share in the four cities (i.e., by proportion of all kilometres travelled and by proportion of all motorised commute trips) (Cosgrove, 2011; BITRE, 2009), shows that Adelaide’s, Brisbane’s and Melbourne’s figures fall below the national average levels (10.5% and 16.7% respectively) (Cosgrove, 2011; BITRE, 2009). In contrast, Sydney has higher UPT shares (13.3% and 22.7%). Thus, in comparison to Sydney, there is a more pressing need to prompt UPT use against car dependency within the other three cities.

Next, the BRT systems of the four cities are compared in terms of infrastructure and service features as another key consideration underpinning case study selection. The aim is to ensure that the selected area has a well-implemented BRT system that can be considered

70 as a viable alternative to private cars. A scrutiny of existing literature (Levinson et al., 2003b;

Levinson et al., 2003a; Currie, 2006; Currie and Delbosc, 2010; Hensher and Golob, 2008) illustrates that Melbourne’s BRT (Smart Bus Routes) is less comparable to the BRTs of the other three cities, since its BRT only involves the implementation of bus priority signals with the on-street bus service (e.g., at cross-sections) (Table 4.2). By contrast, the other three cities have all implemented exclusive busways as a core component of BRT. Given this, Melbourne’s BRT system is excluded from the selection process.

Last, some distinctions can be identified among the remaining BRTs as well. First, the BRT networks in Brisbane and Sydney are relatively more extensive (with total lengths of 49.1 and 31.4 kilometre respectively) compared to Adelaide’s BRT network (12 kilometres).

However, Sydney’s BRT has a mixed design of the busway system, which means that its busway network has some on-street segments instead of providing continuously exclusive right-of-ways. Second, while Brisbane’s and Sydney’s BRTs employ intelligent transport systems that enable real time information display, Adelaide’s BRT only uses guided buses.

Third, Brisbane’s and Adelaide’s BRTs adopt an open design that allows on-street buses’

access to the busway, whereas Sydney’s BRT is operated as a trunkline service, by which on-street buses cannot access the busway and the BRT vehicles cannot run off the busway.

Finally, Brisbane’s BRT system involves a considerably larger number of bus services (over 170 bus routes) compared to Sydney (12 routes) and Adelaide (18 routes), suggesting Brisbane’s BRT as a more integrated and important component within its UPT network.

Based on the above comparisons, it appears that compared to the BRTs in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, Brisbane’s BRT is the more fully-fledged one that incorporates most characteristics of a typical BRT (Hoffman, 2008). Hence Brisbane is selected as the case study for this research.

71 Table 4.2 BRT system features of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane

Sydney Melbourne Adelaide Brisbane

Dedicated busway X _ X X

Trunk-only Direct Direct Direct Number of routes fully

72