Urban Transport in the OIC Megacities
26
the air conditioned services in Dhaka. However, this approach has not been particularly successful as
it tends to be limited to niche markets. The most common practice in the bus sector has been found in
the form of medium-term route franchise contract preferably competitively tendered. Franchising is
often combined with giving the operators the freedom to establish association in order to be able to
provide high frequency services on routes requiring a large number of vehicles. In addition, in order
to avoid the emergence of cartels, local authorities in Buenos Aires ensured that route franchises
granted to specific associations overlapped, so that there was a degree of competition on the road.
However, it is note that the ultimate objective of regulation should not be to maintain a highly
fragmented bus industry but to encourage structures onwhich competition can be based (World Bank,
2002).
Despite the pronounced financing and management problems, public transport conditions in
developing countries have been improving steadily in the recent years. The emergence of the Bus
Rapid System (BRT) in Curitiba, Brazil in 1974 and introduction of TransMillenio, the BRT system of
Bogota, Colombia in the late 1990s, have led the way for many cities across the developing world to
adopt this revolutionary mode. Currently, BRT investments are found in 160 cities worldwide and at
least as many cities are at various stages of planning, designing or investing in new systems. According
to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) that specialises in BRT practice, on
average, BRT systems can be built in a fraction of the time of light rail, and BRT can cost 30 times less
to construct and 3 times less to operate. The main advantage of BRT is that it offers high quality,
reliable and quick transport for low income groups. Most BRT projects are pro-poor and trying to
improve the accessibility levels of previously excluded groups. Megacities offer the additional
advantage of high levels of demand to support the operations of mass transit system (ITDP, 2015;
Cervero, 2013).
However, this does not always make a significant difference to the traffic conditions as even when the
system is operating over capacity, the users are often previous public transport users who shifted
from traditional buses to the BRT. For example, TransJakarta, the BRT system of Jakarta, Indonesia
has not alleviated the congestion in the city, despite the yearly increase in ridership. Almost 70% of
the riders were former commuters on the regular bus system and only 14% used a private car. In
addition, the bus systemwas only built to accommodate only two-thirds of the total demand, resulting
in heavy crowding. Logistical issues, involving the design of the boarding ramps and buses as well as
the lack of feeder buses, also hamper the effectiveness of this system (Hook and Ernst, 2005).
High-end bus rapid transit's main advantage over comparable modes like light rail and metro rail are
its routing flexibility and cost (and implementation speed) advantages. BRT allows for far more
routing flexibility than rail because of buses' fundamental nature. Unlike trains, buses can jump on
and off their "tracks" (busways), thus combining feeder and line-haul functions in one vehicle. For
example, a bus can pick up suburban commuters in their neighbourhoods, enter a busway leading into
an urban downtown, then leave the busway and circulate on downtown streets. This trip would
otherwise require two transfers (suburban commuters driving or taking a feeder bus to a suburban
rail station, travelling to the downtown, then transferring to a city bus, metro rail system, or taxi) (Tri-
State Transportation Campaign, 2015).
Furthermore, BRT can generally be constructed at less cost than rail systems. The average capital costs
are $7-55 million per mile for BRT systems using busways compared to $12.4-118.8 million per mile
for light rail (Tri-State Transportation Campaign, 2015).
Compared to rail, BRT may have to face the problem of image. In some communities, buses are viewed
negatively as dirty, slow, or only for people without other transportation options (depending on the
quality of existing bus service, these perceptions may be justified). In these places, "selling" BRT may
require a branding campaign which clearly separates BRT from traditional bus service. Of course, in
the long run it is a BRT system's quality of service which will separate it from regular bus service (Tri-
State Transportation Campaign, 2015).