Anzir Boodoo wrote:
>
> (forwarded back to the list, as delivery to [log in to unmask] failed)
>
> > On Friday, Dec 17, 2004, at 08:38 Europe/London, Hongwei Li wrote:
> >> I need some examples about bus station design and traffic management
> >
> > Sorry for the delay... I think there are two main types of bus station
> > design which fully separate buses and pedestrians. One is the Drive In
> > Reverse Out (DIRO) type, favoured by Metro, which you will see all
> > over West Yorkshire.
> > The second is the grade separated type
There is a third, which is essentially a Drive In Drive Out arrangement.
I know it as the "shallow saw-tooth" design. The bus drives alongside
the stand, at a shallow angle to the bus station, and is able to pull
away again without reversing. This design is standard around Greater
Manchester, for example. It is however relatively land hungry, which may
explain why the more traditional DIRO type was chosen for the new bus
and coach station at Manchester Airport.
Another consequence of this design is that passengers can feel very
isolated at night, with few or no other people at their stand or at
adjoining stands. For this reason, Greater Manchester PTE has adopted a
policy of concentrating all evening departures on a small number of
stands. Buses use one stand up to 1900 and another stand afterwards.
Sometimes this can be confusing, as either passengers or drivers forget
which stand they're supposed to be using. :-(
Grade separated bus stations seem to be out of favour now, if indeed
they were ever in favour. The Great British Public prefers level access
and will walk across bus lanes to reach their stand, however many
staircases or escalators or lifts are provided. Warrington bus station
is a typical example, and is soon to be replaced by a new design.
Runcorn also has a grade separated bus station. It seems to work rather
better, but mainly because the only place you would want to walk to is
the adjacent shopping centre, accessed via escalators.
Whatever design you choose, make sure it's flexible enough to cope with
different types of bus - short wheelbase, long wheelbase, articulated,
single deck, double deck, low platform entry, high platform entry etc.
And think through the allocation of routes to stands very carefully. You
may want to concentrate all the routes that serve a particular corridor
on one stand, for the convenience of passengers; but this could lead to
congestion and delays as buses queue to reach that one stand.
And you may want to concentrate arrivals and departures at specific
times, to make interchange easy - also leading to congestion.
BTW, Lancashire County Council has just won an award for the design of
the new Chorley Interchange, so perhaps there are some lessons to be
learned there. See
<http://www.bus-industry-awards.com/project_briefs_infra.htm> and
<http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/bus/chorley_interchange/chorley.asp>.
--
Neil Worthington, Urmston, UK
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