Redefining performance assessment framework for urban public transport system with focus on paratransit in class IB cities

Abstract

India's booming economy and quick urbanisation have caused a rise in private vehicle ownership and travel demand, which has increased traffic congestion and travel time. The current idea recognizes that paratransit is important for meeting travel needs from beginning to end, and not just as a connection to regular public transportation. This is especially true in newer cities where there aren't many public transportation options. ithout paratransit networks, cities would see a rise in the use of private vehicles as they continue to serve a vital shared mobility demand of users. MoUD in 2009 introduced the service level benchmarks for cities to evaluate their performance public transport service. The current benchmarking procedure is based on Level of Service (LOS), where each of the parameters receives a score for the city, and these scores are added together to determine the total score. Cities of various sizes and populations are benchmarked using a set of comparable benchmarking indicators in this technique, which is common to all cities. India's cities are diverse, with the bulk of them having populations between one and five million. Using the secondary data gathered, it seemed unfair to compare the performance of public transportation services in larger cities with those in smaller metropolises. The study's key finding is that, for a city that Census classifies as Class IB cities, one of the benchmarks for Intermediate Paratransit needs to undergo significant modifications for better evaluation of the performance of paratransit service. This study investigates the cities which lack presence of mass transit component in trips taken on public transportation within the city, which naturally shifted the focus to the informal mode of transportation known as paratransit, which runs along predetermined routes within the city to accommodate intra-city movements. The study was conducted in Ghaziabad, which is a Class IB city in India and doesn't have any formal public transportation options. As a result, the city relies heavily on three-wheeler auto-rickshaws as a public transportation mode to provide in-city transportation services for groups of three to eight passengers. This city is used as a case study to demonstrate the methodology. Redefining Performance Assessment Framework for Urban Public Transport System with Focus on Paratransit in Class IB Cities ii To help meet the transportation needs of the city, the research is to make changes to a performance assessment framework. This new framework is able to evaluate both formal and informal public transportation systems and includes important criteria such as efficiency, effectiveness, passenger comfort, etc. These indicators were not previously included in the existing benchmarking framework used to evaluate paratransit systems. Therefore, the study proposed a set of indicators and recommendations to be included in the present public transport benchmarking mechanism followed in India based on the relationship identified between the variables, on how to include the city characteristics in the SLB, so that it gives realistic targets to the city based upon its characteristics where paratransit exists as dominant mode choice for the commuters