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Taking action to cater for all groups of passengers

Posted: 16 December 2013 | Damjan Kregar, Transport Operations Senior Manager, LPP | No comments yet

The city of Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and has approximately 260,000 inhabitants. But in the Ljubljana Urban Region (LUR), the number of inhabitants is much higher. The LUR covers 9% of Slovenian territory and around 20% of the entire Slovenian urban population. Alongside the Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL) there are an additional 25 municipalities in this area.

LPP – the passenger transport company of Ljubljana – is nowadays a modern company embracing its 112 years of tradition. It is a public company owned by Public Holding Ljubljana, the MOL and some adjoining municipalities of the LUR. Currently, the company owns 63 buses for regional transport and 208 buses for city transport, operating on 27 city lines, 19 integrated lines and 14 regional lines. There are approximately 357km of city lines, 300km of integrated lines, and around 400km of regional lines – so all-in-all, approximately 1,057km of lines within the LUR region.

The company employs more than 850 staff, the majority of which are drivers (around 600 of them) and more than 120 mechanical and maintenance employees.

The city of Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and has approximately 260,000 inhabitants. But in the Ljubljana Urban Region (LUR), the number of inhabitants is much higher. The LUR covers 9% of Slovenian territory and around 20% of the entire Slovenian urban population. Alongside the Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL) there are an additional 25 municipalities in this area. LPP – the passenger transport company of Ljubljana – is nowadays a modern company embracing its 112 years of tradition. It is a public company owned by Public Holding Ljubljana, the MOL and some adjoining municipalities of the LUR. Currently, the company owns 63 buses for regional transport and 208 buses for city transport, operating on 27 city lines, 19 integrated lines and 14 regional lines. There are approximately 357km of city lines, 300km of integrated lines, and around 400km of regional lines – so all-in-all, approximately 1,057km of lines within the LUR region. The company employs more than 850 staff, the majority of which are drivers (around 600 of them) and more than 120 mechanical and maintenance employees.

The city of Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and has approximately 260,000 inhabitants. But in the Ljubljana Urban Region (LUR), the number of inhabitants is much higher. The LUR covers 9% of Slovenian territory and around 20% of the entire Slovenian urban population. Alongside the Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL) there are an additional 25 municipalities in this area.

LPP – the passenger transport company of Ljubljana – is nowadays a modern company embracing its 112 years of tradition. It is a public company owned by Public Holding Ljubljana, the MOL and some adjoining municipalities of the LUR. Currently, the company owns 63 buses for regional transport and 208 buses for city transport, operating on 27 city lines, 19 integrated lines and 14 regional lines. There are approximately 357km of city lines, 300km of integrated lines, and around 400km of regional lines – so all-in-all, approximately 1,057km of lines within the LUR region.

The company employs more than 850 staff, the majority of which are drivers (around 600 of them) and more than 120 mechanical and maintenance employees.

In previous years, LPP has taken part in several projects in connection with European institutions – some of them motivate the projects of sustainable mobility and some of them motivate projects for special groups of commuters – for instance the elderly and people with special needs. As far as sustainable mobility is concerned, I have to mention two important projects. One is the CIVITAS MOBILIS project where LPP has tested bio-diesel as one of the possible engine fuels, and the other project is called CIVITAS ELAN, where LPP has tested some hydraulic hybrid and CNG vehicles. These two very successful projects lead to the decision to purchase 20 methane buses. Since 2011 there have been 20 vehicles in operation using CNG (compressed natural gas – methane) which are meeting (alongside another 40 buses within the fleet) the standards of EURO V engines. During the project, direct comparisons between vehicles with EURO III, EURO V and CNG engines were implemented on the field. The tests showed extremely low pollution on PM10 when running CNG engines – which was expected. Ljubljana is positioned in a ‘basin’, so it is important that the public transport fleet is ‘green’. The strategy for the next four years has thus been accepted in accordance with all those facts: ‘At least half of the city fleet must run on CNG fuel’.

In another project, the MOL took the decision to introduce special lanes for public transport, socalled ‘yellow lanes’, on Dunajska Street and Celovška Street. When using these yellow lanes, the travelling time has been reduced by more than five minutes on specific routes. This is a step in the right direction for more efficient public transport and more sustainable mobility.

At the moment in Ljubljana there are three ‘Park & Ride’ areas. In a project that has looked into the forthcoming years, a further 20 more Park & Ride areas will be introduced within the LUR. Together, the yellow lanes and Park & Ride systems are a winning combination to reduce car traffic which will in turn contribute to a cleaner environment for the citizens to live.

Another important aspect that has been included within the CIVITAS ELAN project is known as measure 6.1 – Demand Responsive Service. Through this measure, LPP wants to make its service even more accessible for all groups of passengers. Our drivers are an incredibly important asset and are essential in helping the elderly and people with reduced mobility to use our public transport network. There must be a system in place which will support and help our drivers on the field, and so LPP has decided to develop such a system.

All our city lines are supported with vehicles, but not all of the vehicles are modern and some lack new technical features. Some of our older vehicles are not low-floor and not all of them are equipped with a ramp for wheelchair access. To gain the highest user satisfaction, we disperse all our vehicles each day in different ways so that on each line there are few newer and few older vehicles. Also to gain the same ‘wear and tear’ of vehicles, the vehicles are used on different lines each day. Our buses are equipped with a communication system (telephone, SMS and GPS) which is important for the driver and ‘Traffic Operators’ to communicate so that we can track where each vehicle is at any given time.

We have also introduced a system for people who need extra help to use so that they can benefit from our public transport services – and the system is working effectively. Those passengers can call the LPP traffic control centre on a dedicated number requesting to use transport on a certain day at a certain hour. They then receive immediate feedback on the possibility of that transport service and when possible, confirmation of it. The dispatcher makes a reservation for that trip into the system with the date, time, line, direction and start bus shelter and end bus shelter. The LPP traffic control centre then informs the driver who helps the passenger on-board the bus at the agreed time and place. Through this service, our passengers with reduced mobility can use our network and avoid unnecessary stress.

These reservations are important from a capacity point-of-view. Our buses have limited wheelchair space, so if there are more than three passengers with reduced mobility who request to use the same service at the same time, we can take action to reorganise the service.

To ensure even better service, the reservation can also be made by an ‘accompanying person’ – for instance passengers with poor sight or the deaf are sometimes unable to communicate – so their accompanying person can make the reservation on their behalf. When the reservation is made, the traffic operator is respon sible for checking and, if necessary, responsible for changing the vehicle on a reserved line at a certain time and day so the vehicle is able to accept a person with a special need. At the same time, the driver of the same bus is informed so that they are aware to expect a passenger who will need assistance on boarding the vehicle.

Through introducing this service and surveying the passengers who use it, we know that people who never used to use public transport before are now actually becoming occasional users – and the number is constantly growing.

We have also implemented a system that incorporates a speaker and a display on the bus. On 121 buses, all ‘next’ bus stops are announced in advance – a very helpful system for our blind and deaf passengers.

Not so long ago, the pedestrian zone in Ljubljana was extended with the main market place located almost in the middle of this pedestrian zone. This means that it has become inaccessible and very difficult for the elderly to access. We have many elderly passengers and so to ensure they are able to access the main market place, we established a free-of-charge transport service to be used especially by passengers who have difficulty walking. The service was, until this year, executed by two electric vehicles called ‘Kavalir’ (which means Gentleman) from April to November. Both of them were not expected to be operating during cold and rainy weather. However, this winter and future spring, for the first time, one additional electric vehicle will be in operation for the whole year, regardless of the weather.

Our Kavalir vehicles are already a big success – with more than 200 users per day, and we hope that with the additional vehicle our elderly passengers will use our services even more.

LPP is taking a lot of actions to make living and traveling around the city and in the LUR as pleasant as possible for all groups of citizens. This is the reason why LPP is taking part in research and development projects and trying to find ways of reducing pollution whilst maximising user satisfaction.

Biography

Damjan Kregar graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Ljubljana in 1987. In 2005, Damjan obtained a Master of Science – Informatics and Management Science from the University of Ljubljana in the Faculty of Economic Science. He joined LPP in 2009 as Department Manager and in 2010 was appointed as Project Manager, predominantly working on the CIVITAS ELAN project. Since 2012 Damjan has been the Transport Operations Senior Manager responsible for seven departments with around 750 employees.

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