IMPACT OF BRT ON TRAVEL CONDITIONS ON ADJACENT MAJOR CORRIDOR: A REVEALED TRAVEL TIME IMPACT ANALYSIS

Abstract

Traffic congestion is a major urban transportation issue as it can be a barrier to economic growth. One potential solution to the issue of urban road traffic congestion is effective public transportation (PT). As the rapid urbanization and increased motorization are becoming the cause of severe congestion and unstable transportation system on streets and roads of metropolitan cities throughout the world, this not only affect the traffic, but have negative impacts on environment, economy, and social well- being of people as well. There are several strategies for reducing congestion that can be used to deal with such issues. The establishment of mass transit systems (MTS) has proven to be a very effective strategy, with the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) emerging as a preeminent one. The Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa asked the Cities Development Initiative for Asia for technical assistance in 2013 to upgrade Peshawar's disorganized, poorly managed, and deteriorating urban transportation system. Since Peshawar’s University Road is the busiest route of Peshawar city when millions of people rush for their daily life activities for almost the whole day. The users faced serious issues in terms of travel time, congestion, and pollution. Therefor It was suggested that the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project be built to address this issue. Thus, BRT Peshawar project began in 2017 under the Peshawar Development Authority (PDA). The system became fully operational in August 2020. Since there are many studies that focuses on the evaluation of BRT projects, research on impact of BRT on adjacent roads have received little to no attention. So, after the inauguration of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in Peshawar there’s a need to find out whether it has improved the travel conditions of city or not. The evaluation framework comprised of three main MOEs which include vehicle operating cost (VOC), fuel emissions and level of service (LOS) of the road users and vehicles viii travelling on adjacent road to BRT. For this analysis two scenarios were formed. First one was finding all the above mentioned MOEs for with BRT condition. Second condition was without BRT. Ultimately, based on the findings of the analysis, it was concluded that BRT Peshawar has brought positive and beneficial impacts in terms of vehicle operating cost (VOC), fuel emissions and level of Service (LOS) for the condition in which BRT project was inaugurated. The vehicle operating cost (VOC) has reduced by 15.3% while using a Hepburn model. Similarly, a decrease of 26.3% was seen while using the NTRC values for the condition that included BRT. While carbon monoxide (CO) has decreased by 24% for the scenario when BRT was inaugurated. Whereas the quantity of nitrous oxide (NOx) and Hydrocarbon (HC) have remained stagnated at the level for both the scenarios i.e. with and without BRT. While the university road observed an improvement in the LOS for both the directions when BRT was introduced. LOS in Direction-1 improved from F to D, while direction-3 has seen an increase from B to A after the construction and operation of BRT.