The existence of several transport modes in urban areas is an important factor and a natural consequence of permanent and increasing agglomeration. These transport systems serve the city and when urban areas develop, transport has to cope with demand and discourage individual transportation. The key to the problem is intermodality which needs transport integration projects and policies oriented to the economic, environment and social segments. In the competition between public transport and individual motorized transport, intermodality has become a successful condition for encouraging public transport.
The benefits of intermodal transport have determined the authorities in big cities to develop new projects for making public transport more efficient and for reducing travel times, important factors for passengers in choosing transport modes.
The Romanian Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure has approved the set up of a work group for identifying the solutions necessary to operate trains on Bucharest ring route as part of a project that aims at developing intermodal and passenger transfer points. “Intermodal stations permit the simultaneous access to the means of transport of RATB (surface transport operator), of CFR Călători and where possible, of the underground transport operator. In this way, a journey will take at least 30 minutes, compared to one hour, as currently”, declared Brânduşa Raeceanu, spokeswoman of RATB. Bucharest’s rail ring will be integrated in the transport system of the city and of its metropolitan area and for this “we have already taken the necessary steps to elaborate the cost study and the project could benefit from external funding”, said the Executive Director of Metrorex, Gheoghe Udrişte.
Construction projects will not be the only concern of transport operators. They will also have to integrate their charging system in the near future. Studies for creating single charging systems are already underway. The authorities in Moscow, next to RZD and the commuter transport operator, introduce single tickets for trains and for the underground, ticket that will cost less than the present ones, as the capital’s administration is not interested in increasing costs, but in promoting public transport by integration and intermodality services and projects. “We don’t want to increase the ticket price, we want to attract many more passengers towards integrated public transport services. The single ticket will be used on all lines and it could cost much less. It is far cheaper to provide subsidies to public transport than to build roads”, declared the mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin.
For providing an intermodal and single transport system that will help reduce travel time and will optimise the passengers’ comfort, the authorities will have to manage and coordinate the projects implemented between transport operators so as to succeed in attracting passengers towards public transport and increasing the revenues of companies.
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