General guidelines for the design of BRT routes in the Public Transport Integrated System of Bogotá

Abstract

The objective was to establish general guidelines for the design of the BRT route network in Bogotá's Public Transport Integrated System – SITP – in terms of geographical layouts, stop points, and frequencies. The demand for the morning rush hour in a typical business day before COVID-19 was contemplated. The research methodology had three phases. 1) Establish several sets of preliminary guidelines for route network design in the Bogotá BRT System – TransMilenio –. 2) Development of a methodology – based on a transport model implemented in PTV-Visum – to assess different routes scenarios designed following those sets of preliminary guidelines. 3) Application of this assessment methodology to quantify the impact of each set of preliminary guidelines for route network design, thus choosing the best alternatives. The outputs can be divided into two categories. 1) Heuristic processes for the systematic design of routes in the BRT system. 2) Selected guidelines for the design of route network in TransMilenio. This report will be focused on the second category of outputs. Among the conclusions, the BRT services in Bogotá should be designed with a multi-criteria approach, which implies a relatively complex route network. A very simplified route network has proven to be inconvenient. On the other hand, in the short term, it is recommended to maintain diametrical routes to avoid the collapse of central stations due to increased transfers. However, in the medium term, the paradigm must evolve to radial routes design. This approach would make it possible to significantly reduce the minimum required fleet, improving headways, increasing comfort within buses, and/or reducing investment in rolling stock. Furthermore, it has been shown that the radial routes approach would require four new central interchange stations in Bogotá.