Skip to main content

Cross-border public transport

A recent cross-border study by PTV and transport consultant ProgTrans in the tri-national Eurodistrict Basel (TEB), which has borders with Germany and France, examined ways in which public transport could be strengthened in the region and the need to make the most of mobility options.
September 18, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
A recent cross-border study by 3264 PTV and transport consultant 7501 ProgTrans in the tri-national Eurodistrict Basel (TEB), which has borders with Germany and France, examined ways in which public transport could be strengthened in the region and the need to make the most of mobility options.

Transport experts explored and evaluated a set of measures aimed at providing an alternative to the car and improving the availability and range of public transport options, including connections. New cross-border tram connections and the implementation of parking options for cars and bicycles at suburban railway stations in the region were also included.

In order to give an overview of the cross-border mobility options, traffic counts and surveys were carried out for cross-border traffic. Mobility behaviour relating to households, source and destination traffic for individual motorised traffic and public transport, as well as the use of park and ride (P+R) and bike and ride systems (B+R) was obtained, showing that there are more than 150,000 border crossings per day to Switzerland alone.

"One of the greatest hurdles for the new public transport concept can be identified as the construction of the core components and the implementation of the regional suburban railway network", clarifies project engineer Dr Birgit Dugge.

To verify the effectiveness of measures, an existing transportation forecasting demand model was integrated into a PTV Visum model with updated availability data and information relating to the enquiry to produce a forecast of the effect of the various measures on local transport.

A list of measures was derived from the results, which were likely to have a positive effect on the demand for cross-border public transport. In addition to the predictions, an estimate was carried out regarding future demand for P+R as well as B+R spaces in stations in France and Germany.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Transit takes on demanding role
    April 2, 2021
    Community transport - or paratransit - has historically formed the basis of demand-responsive operations. But with new routing technologies, David Crawford sees wider potential
  • Chris Tomlinson: 'My golden rule is have an open mind’
    July 27, 2021
    The executive director of Georgia’s mobility authorities explains tolling’s place in demand management, the benefits of being mode-agnostic and how to learn from other agencies
  • Cost benefit analysis ‘can’t be carried out with a cookbook’
    June 25, 2018
    There is far more to working out the worth of a project than simply filling in a few headings on a spreadsheet. David Crawford surveys some recent thinking from the US and Canada. Cost benefit analysis (CBA) “can’t be carried out with a cookbook”, warns US analyst Professor Robert J Brent. “ You can’t just get out a spreadsheet and fill in the data for all the headings. Each transport CBA should have something that is distinctive, in terms of location (for example, for a rural area), types of user
  • Smart cities - better world, says A-to-Be
    May 19, 2020
    Smart city adoption in the US has been sluggish, thinks Jason Wall of A-to-Be USA. But there is still time to learn lessons from the European experience...