1^st Semester, AY 2002/03

Instructor: Dr Lee Der-Horng

28 October, 2002

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION *

2 LRT ATTRIBUTES AND CHARACTERISTICS *

3 STATUS OF NUS *

4 ANALYSIS AND PREDICTION *

5 CONCLUSIONS *

REFERENCE *

APPENDIX *

NUS lies in the south of Singapore. It is about 2.2 km². The current student population of NUS is about 30,000. There are three main bus route connecting the campus to the outside MRT stations and resident districts which is SBS 95, SBS 96 and SBS 151. From the analysis of the current situation we can see that the traffic supply lags the future demand even the current situation cannot satisfy the level of service. The main idea of this report is how to approach this transportation problem. The shuttle bus in NUS was not analyzed since we consider most students and staffs use public transportation or their own cars to go to university or go outside. 95, and 96 is directly connected from the nearest MRT stations to NUS, we want to built LRT which indirectly will compete with bus service. Introducing LRT is also for the connection of the outside and NUS campus.

In this project, we analyzed the current transportation situation of NUS, and predicted the public traffic demand of the people on NUS network after 10 years by our group data survey. The level of service was also analyzed. From the results we can see that the current network situation to meet the future traffic demand is far from satisfactory. We proposed two cases of solution. The one is to add more buses; the other one is to introduce LRT into NUS campus. From the analysis of these two cases, the latter case is chosen.

This report is organised as follows. In section 2, the LRT is introduced w.r.t. to its attributes and transport characteristics. In section 3, we analyzed the current transit situations of NUS. In section 4, we use growth factor method to predict the population in 2012 (ten years from this year), and got the public traffic demand. The current network level of service was also analyzed in this section. A detailed description of LRT location was proposed in section 5, and comparison of two proposed solution approaches is performed to show the benefit. Section 6 concludes this article.

Figure 1: Example LRT Implementation

Light Rail Transit (LRT) is a mode of urban transportation utilizing predominantly reserved but not necessarily grade-separated rights-of-way. Electrically propelled rail vehicles operate singly or in trains. LRT provides a wide range of passenger capabilities and performance characteristics at moderate costs (Transportation Research Board Committee, 1976).

Most large cities use Rapid Transit as the basic transit mode and supplement it with extensive bus networks like Singapore, Boston, etc. LRT could also be considered as supplement to the extensive networks because of some advantages described below:

• LRT is better adapted to separation quality (speed, reliability, and riding comfort) and that it has a better image.
• LRT can attract passengers that surface transit cannot.
• LRT is environmentally superior because it could reduce the use of private vehicle which effect to the reduction of air pollution and energy consumption
• In term of persons/h served, LRT becomes operationally and economically superior to buses. In other words, LRT is more space efficient than buses.
• LRT is independent from surface traffic so safety and operation reliability are considerably higher than they are for conventional buses or cars.
• LRT could increase mobility through the increased usage of public transport.
• LRT support central city revitalization as part of an overall plan.

The first automated LRT is system in Singapore is Bukit Panjang LRT system that links Bukit Panjang New Town to the MRT system at Choa Chu Kang. This LRT started operation in 1999. For the operation, Singapore government announced that the Singapore MRT Ltd would be the operator for this LRT. The total number of stations in the Bukit Panjang LRT system is 14 stations such as Choa Chu Kang, South View, Phoenix, and so forth.

Currently, the new lines of LRT to begin operations soon are in the Sengkang and Punggol area. Also, new LRT lines will be built over the next 10 to 15 years to serve Bukit Timah and Jurong area. Jurong Region LRT Line will serve people who live beyond the end point of the East West Line (Boon Lay station) and also students and staff of Nanyang Technological University. These developments attest to the LTA’s intermodal integration thrust and confidence in the LRT technology.

The area of NUS is about 2.2 km². The land-use pattern determines the distribution of travel demand attraction across the campus map shown in Figure 2 below:

Figure 2: NUS campus map (2002) with each grid 270m-by-270m square

NUS road network consists of 5 entry and exit points (Cultural centre, Architecture, Hon Sui Sen Library, NUH and PGP) with 3 main arterial dual-lane dual-directional roads and 3 major intersections (Yusok Ishak House, NUH and Architecture). There are a total of 15 carparks as listed in Table A1 (Appendix). The aggregate total number of parking lots is estimated at 1981.

The following aggregate population statistics are derived from both NUS facts and figures (1980-1981, 1992-1993, 1994-1995, 2000-2001) and Registrar’s Office.

The population number of NUS in 2001 was 31,698. Since the on-campus travel demand is derived from the present NUS population, Table 1 below provides the aggregated total and regional data on student enrolment and present staff and support.

Table 1: NUS aggregate population data

[Resource: 1. NUS annual report of 1980-1981, 1992-1993, 1994-1995; 2. Registrar’s Office Website]

The aggregate categories are split according to geographical scope: Engineering and Building & Estate Management (BEM); Arts & Social Sciences, Business Administration and Law; Medicine and Science. Currently (2001), it is found that the proportion of three categories is about 1:1:1, a balanced population distribution across the campus. These represent the trip-ends for home-based trips and trip-ends for internal transfers as well as non home-based trips.

Residences cater to NUS population for both on-campus (all halls of residences, Kuok Foundation House & Extension A, Prince George’s Park and Visitor’s Lodge) and near-campus (Gilman Heights and Kent Vale) accommodation. Deriving data from Office of Estate & Development, Table A2 gives the breakdown in terms of the dwelling units available for rental.

The maximum number of persons able to be accommodated by all the halls of residences (all single-room) is 2799. Prince George’s Park has both single-room (2854 units) and 200 studio rooms (for married couples, assumed only 2 persons). Kuok Foundation House and Extension A provide 499 single-room units. Gilman Heights offer 2 blocks of 126 units each (max. 6 persons in each unit). Kent Vale offers 516 units for staff (assumed to be a family of 3 persons) and Visitor’s Lodge offers 20 units for temporary accommodation (assumed 1 person each). This gives a grand total capacity of 9632 persons for all present NUS residences.

Currently the Singapore Bus Service (SBS) runs the several following bus services into NUS campus.

Table 2 Bus services into NUS campus

Two of them, i.e., Route 96 and 95 connect NUS to Clementi and Buona Vista MRT stations respectively. In order to know the travel demand between MRT and NUS, a traffic survey was carried out at three bus stations: two for 96, and one for 95 in the afternoon peak hour (5:00 p.m. -6:00 p.m.). The data of travel passengers are displayed in the following tables 3 to 5.

Table 3 Number of passengers observed at NUS FAC OF ENGRG* station of SBS 96

*NUS FAC OF ENGRG is NUS faculty of engieering

From these observations, it can be seen that after 5:30 p.m., the volume of passengers became larger, the average occupancy for a bus is around 50, and reached a value of 70 at 6:00. For a standard transit bus with a capacity of 80, it is crowded.

Similar situation appeared at opposite central library (OPP CTRL LIB) station.

Table 4 Number of passengers observed at OPP CTRL LIB* station of SBS 96

From table 4, we can get the passengers volume for route 96 across the section was 721 passengers per hour. In order to fulfill such a big demand, a frequent dispatch of buses became a necessity. The average headway for the above observation is less than 2.5 minutes. Such a frequent dispatching is costly. According to the normal (scheduled) dispatch frequency with an average interval of 5 minutes, the average load for each bus will be 60 passengers, which reaches an average volume/capacity ratio of 0.75 and has a very low level of service.

Table 5 Number of passengers observed at COMPUTING SOC1 BLDG* station of SBS 95

For SBS 95, COMPUTING SOC1 BLDG shown in Table 5 above is a crowded bus stop. Its peak hour starts at 5:00 p.m. An average of 35 passengers gets on for every bus, which reached an average volume of 70 passengers. And queuing is easily caused by a bigger headway between two buses, for example, at 5:36, because the bus arrived after a 19 minutes interval, only 12 passengers got on the bus, which left about another 40 passengers to queue for the next bus. It takes a long time to dissipate, and causes the following buses being crowded. The passenger volume across this section was 392 passengers per hour.

From the observation and data, the following transportation deficiencies for the current SBS bus service into NUS campus:

1. Crowded: from peak hour investigation, especially after 5:30 p.m., most buses have a high volume/capacity ratio. In some cases, this ratio even reaches to near to unity and some passengers have to queue for next bus; the quality of service is not good and unsatisfactory.
2. Congestion: in peak hour, in order to fulfill the great travel demand, more buses have to be dispatched into service, which adds more traffic to the peak traffic volume in the afternoon. The traffic condition on the road network in campus is worsened.
3. Inefficiency: Because of a high load factor for every bus and big travel demand, many passengers spent much time on queuing for getting on a bus; sometimes more time is spent on waiting for several buses without getting on. On the other hand, the travel time also increases because of the traffic congestion caused by more buses running in the road network. Take route 96 for example, generally the travel time from NUS to Clementi is about 20 minutes, but we can see in afternoon peak hour, it cost 10 minutes just from NUS FAC OF ENGRG station to OPP CTRL LIB station, which has only a distance of two stations. So the total travel time will be increased by 2-3 times.
4. Pollution: lots of buses and cars running into or through NUS campus, is a big threatening to the campus environment. It is even worse with traffic jam and low travel speed. It is to be considered to introduce a mode of mass transit without air pollution into campus.

Based on historical population data in Table 1 and linear curve-fitting (Figure 3, where year 0 is the benchmark year 1981), the predicted population growth data is shown in Table 6. The growth factor for population projection in NUS is also given out in Table 6.

Figure 3 Linear curve-fitting for historical enrolment data (1981 as benchmark year)

Table 6 Predicted population and growth factor in 2005, 2010 and 2012

Assuming that the public transit demand increases accordingly to population growth in NUS, the public transit demand as well as the travel demand connecting NUS and MRT can be predicted by growth factor method based on the surveyed data of Route 95 and 96. According to the population growth prediction, the growth factor of 2005, 2010 and 2012 are 3.24%, 19.79% and 26.4%. The predictions of passenger volume across central library and computing social 1 building are completed in the following table 7.

Table 7 Passenger demand prediction for year 2005, 2010 and 2012

Suppose that the supply of bus services will not change in future years, while assuming the level of service increase by 0.6% per year, then the passenger capacity between NUS and MRT by 95 and 96 for future years are listed in table 8.

The following assumptions are made in addition:

• The occupancy of one bus unit is 40
• The interval between two buses is the average value of the frequency range according to SBS’s schedule timetable

Table 8 Passenger capacity between NUS and MRT by 95 and 96 for future years

By comparing with Table 7 and Table 8, we can find that at the end of this decade, current transit service will not satisfy the passengers’ travel demand anymore, in 2012 the gap between supply and demand will continue to increase. More transit services need to be provided, either by adding more buses (but the interval is already very small), or introducing new mode of transit.

As an aggregate measure of the proportion of NUS population who are driving, use the proportion of carpark capacity is to residence capacity as approximation. Thus, the proportion of population who are driving is assumed fixed for all time.

In addition, the following assumptions are made:

• VPH (PCU) of 1 lane=800
• Total lane usage=Public lane usage + Private lane usage
• Six public services ply internally: ISB A,B,C & SBS 95/96/151
• With assumed level of service increase of 3% per yr, the public lane PCU usage is derived
• From result99.xls, percentage of car lane usage over all private usage = 70% (assumed constant for all time)
• Carpark utilization (nominal): 50%
• Peak hr car utilization: 50% of all willimg to drive (=20.57% of entire population)
• Assuming a total of 5 incoming lanes into NUS (Cultural centre, Archi, Hon Sui Sen, NUH, PGP), private lane usage is derived

Since the NUS arterial road is single lane for any one direction, then consider the peak hour period for one lane. The maximum lane capacity is 800 VPH (PCU) and the total lane usage is derived based on the statistics and the above assumptions.

The excess of lane capacity represents the lane ability and hence the network ability to avoid traffic jams as well as the excess of transportation supply over demand. When the excess lane capacity is negative, that is the critical point where NUS existing infrastructure fails to meet travel demand.  With the above assumptions, the critical year where the excess of lane capacity first becomes negative is 2012 (Table 9). Hence, the existing NUS infrastructure can only suffice for the next decade, beyond which new means of transit have to be implemented.

Table 9 NUS sketch planning for excess lane capacity (negative: critical year=2012)

Since the public traffic supply cannot satisfy the demand both externally between MRT and NUS as well as network capacity, the level of service is very low, two schemes of solution approaches are proposed as follows:

• Scheme 1. Add more SBS 95 and SBS 96;
• Scheme 2. Introduce LRT into NUS as a complement, not as substitute, to existing SBS buses as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 Proposed LRT line through NUS campus

The comparison of the two proposed schemes is listed in the table below

Table 10 Comparison of two schemes

Since scheme 2 is rated better than scheme 1 from the results of comparison, LRT should be introduced into NUS campus as a complement to the external bus services.

Although some social cost of light rail transit are included, such as allocating public funds, tolerating noise and tolerating some visual intrusion, these social costs are more than offset by the benefits of light rail rapid transit, which include, besides the above, blending in with the NUS and natural environment, less obtrusive construction on a narrower right-of-way, conservation of energy, serving more people’s travel needs more directly, and safety.

In this project, we analyzed the current transportation situation of NUS, and predicted the population traffic demand with the aim of assessing the current/future transit needs and the use of LRT to complement the current transportation supply and infrastructure to meet those needs. From the results, we can see that the current network situation to meet the future traffic demand is far from satisfactory and suffers from the deficiencies of crowdedness, congestion, inefficiency and pollution. The level of service was also analyzed and it was found the existing NUS infrastructure would suffice for the next decade, beyond which new means of transit have to be implemented. We proposed two cases of solution approaches - add more buses or introduce LRT into NUS campus. From the analysis of these two cases, the latter case – LRT complement is chosen in view of its better overall rating, favorable attributes, transit characteristics and the ability to address the identified deficiencies.

1. Paris: European Conference on Ministers of Transport, Light rail transit systems, Washington, D.C., c1994.

1. De, L., Cather, Light rail transit : a state of the art review, United States Department of Transportation, Washinton, D. C., 1976.
2. Light Rail Transit Association, United States, 12 January, 1998, from http://www.lrta.org/
3. United States Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, United States, 2 November, 2002, from http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pressroom/index.htm
4. Singapore Bus Service Transit Limited, Singapore, 19 October, 2002, from www.sbstransit.com.sg
5. Student and Graduate Statistics, Registrar’s Office, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2 November, 2002, from http://www.nus.edu.sg/registrar/statistics.html
6. Office of Estate Development, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2 November, 2002, from http://www.nus.edu.sg/oed
7. Statistics on Singapore, An Annotated bibliography of sources, NUS Libraries, Singapore, 28 August, 2002, from http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/bib/ss/transprt.html
8. Parking in NUS, National university of Singapore, Singapore, 2 October, 2002, from http://www.nus.edu.sg/corporate/visitors/car_parks.htm
9. Public Bus Services, National university of Singapore, Singapore, 15 February, 2002, from http://www.nus.edu.sg/corporate/visitors/bus.htm
10. Office of Human Resource, General Information for New Appointees, Transportation, from http://www.nus.edu.sg/ohr/newappointee/transportation.htm
11. Office of Human Resource, General Information for New Appointees, Transportation, from http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/international/transport
12. Residential Services, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2 March, 2002, from http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/housing
13. Results of NUS Internal Bus Service, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2 November, 2002, from http://www.fba.nus.edu.sg/rsearch/pqrc/PQRCNW/survey/ibs/ibsresults.htm
14. About NUS, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 31 October, 2002, from http://www.nus.edu.sg/corporate/about/
15. Intelligent Transportation & Vehicle Systems Laboratory, National University of Singapore, Singapore,12 February, 2002, from http://www.itvs.eng.nus.edu.sg/
16. Engineering Web Sites in Singapore, Transportation, Nanyang Technological University Library, from http://www.ntu.edu.sg/library/eng/trans-sg.htm
17. Statistics Singapore, Singapore Department of Statistics, 4 June, 2002, from http://www.singstat.gov.sg/
18. Ministry of Transport, Singapore, 2002, from http://www.gov.sg/mot/transport/transport.htm

Table A1 NUS carparks (2002)

Table A2 NUS aggregate accommodation residences