Operational Assessment of Public Transport: A Case of Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

In absence of the railway at Kathmandu, Nepal, public transport effectiveness needs to be assessed. The paper aims to assess the operational performance of public transportation in Kalanki-Kalimati-Tripureshwor-Bhotahity forward 6700 m and backward 6200 m section of Kathmandu. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for performance assessment were listed from the literature review and finalized through departmental expert consultation based on average mean score analysis of availability, cost of collection, quality and necessity of the data. Based on the finalized 4 KPI along with 29 micro KPI, performance of SajhaYatayat, bus and microbus were compared categorizing under economical, service, safety and people perception by collecting data through field survey. The economic analysis reveals that microbus has the highest internal rate of return and benefit cost ratio highest as 28.55% and 1.35 respectively while the bus has the highest revenue per kilometer and cost per kilometer as 104.94 and 79.012 respectively. Service indicators analysis reveals that SajhaYatayat has the highest travel time ratio and running time as 1425sec and 1.66, microbus has the highest journey time as 1555.86 sec, the bus has the highest running speed, journey speed and running index as 17.39 kph, 16.42 kph and 0.68 while traveling from Kalanki to Bhotahity respectively. The average passenger waiting index is 0.88. The affordability index of microbus is 4.47% respectively. Bus punctuality of SajhaYatayat is non-frequent but bus and microbus are Frequent. According to a schedule questionnaire survey with 94 respondents, the result of people perception indicators reveals that 21.27% of respondents are not satisfied with SajhaYatayat, bus and microbus. It is concluded that SajhaYatayat is performing better among three-selected public transport in the study route i.e. SajhaYatayat, bus and microbus are performing in decreasing order.