Barriers and facilitators of integration between buses with a higher level of service and rail: An Australian case study

Abstract

The debate as to whether investment should be made in bus based or rail based rapid transit systems continues within the academic literature with entrenched arguments on both sides. Within Australia, the debate has become increasingly political with questions around the transport benefits, the environmental impacts and the financial costs of the rival technologies being significant issues in recent state and territory elections. However, this tends to be a debate around the appropriate solution for particular corridors. In practice all major Australian cities have made investments in both bus serviced and rail serviced corridors. If public transport services are to operate as a coherent network then successful integration must occur between these bus and rail corridors. This paper adds to the literature on the success factors for network integration by examining the barriers and facilitators of integration between buses with a higher level of service and rail using two case studies from Australia. The paper sets out a taxonomy of the elements of network integration then examines cases from around Australia to show aspects of where service integration has been successful and where it has been less so. The paper includes a detailed study of a new public transport infrastructure project in Sydney to examine the concept of bus and rail integration more holistically and to show how a framework of examining success factors for network integration can inform policy.