Evaluating the impact of organizational patterns on the efficiency of urban rail transit systems in China

Over the past few decades, to help alleviate surface road congestion and protect environment, the enthusiasm for constructing Urban Rail Transit systems (URTs) is booming in many megacities of China. Owning to the distinct characteristics, the URTs in different Chinese cities exhibit different organizational patterns, which can be classified into three models (i.e., Publicly owned-operated model, Contemporary commercialization model and Innovative privatization model). The application of the proposed SM-NDEA model indicates the average overall efficiency of Chinese URT systems is relatively low, which is more influenced by the financial and construction inefficiencies than the production and consumption inefficiencies. The detailed comparisons among three organizational models show there exists some differences in terms of the overall efficiency and efficiency scores of four stages across three organizational patterns.     

Light rail or busway? A comparative evaluation for a corridor in Beijing

Like most developing cities, Beijing's public transport is unable to meet demand, but it also faces growing bicycle use. Alternative public transport improvements in a congested corridor of the city — busway, light rail and elevated rail — were modelled and compared in a simple cost-benefit analysis. Complications arose in attempting bus-bicycle modal split modelling and in making due allowance for crowding in a developing country setting. Only the busway showed a positive net present value, but whether the implied withdrawal of roadspace and consequent restraint on the growing number of motorized vehicles is a virtue or not will depend on wider policy considerations.     

Design of a rail transit line for profit maximization in a linear transportation corridor

This paper addresses the design problem of a rail transit line located in a linear urban transportation corridor. The service variables designed are a combination of rail line length, number and locations of stations, headway and fare. Two profit maximization models, which account for the effects of different transit pricing structures (flat and distance-based fare regimes), are proposed. In the proposed models, the effects of passenger demand elasticity and population density along the urban corridor are explicitly considered. The solution properties of the proposed models are explored and compared analytically, and the indifference condition for the two fare regimes in terms of the operator’s net profit is identified. A heuristic solution algorithm to solve the proposed models is presented. Numerical examples are provided to show the effects of the fare regimes, rail capital cost and urban configuration (in terms of urban population distribution and corridor length) on the design of the rail transit line and the profitability of the rail transit operations.     

Optimal allocation of protective resources in urban rail transit networks against intentional attacks

This paper advances the field of network interdiction analysis by introducing an application to the urban rail transit network, deploying protective resources against intentional attacks. The resource allocation problem for urban rail transit systems is considered as a game between two players, the attacker interdicting certain rail stations to generate greatest disruption impact and the system defender fortifying the network to maximize the system’s robustness to external interdictions. This paper introduces a game-theoretic approach for enhancing urban transit networks’ robustness to intentional disruptions via optimally allocating protection resources. A tri-level defender–attacker–user game-theoretic model is developed to allocate protective resources among rail stations in the rail transit network. This paper is distinguished with previous studies in that more sophisticated interdiction behaviors by the attacker, such as coordinated attack on multiple locations and various attacking intensities, are specifically considered. Besides, a more complex multi-commodity network flow model is employed to model the commuter travel pattern in the degraded rail network after interdiction. An effective nested variable neighborhood search method is devised to obtain the solution to the game in an efficient manner. A case study based on the Singapore rail transit system and actual travel demand data is finally carried out to assess the protective resources’ effectiveness against intentional attacks.     

Give public transit a chance: A comparative analysis of competitive travel time in public transit modal share

Extensive research has found that people are more likely to choose the transport alternative which offers shorter travel time. But few studies approached the role of travel time across different transport alternatives and cities. This research assesses the influence of competitive travel time between car and public transit in public transit modal share for commute trips. São Paulo, New York, and Tokyo were selected to perform the analysis. A Fractional Logistic Regression in the binary form was drawn, and a competitive travel time index was calculated based on the Car/Public transit travel time ratio weighted by the number of the employed population at the origin and jobs at destinations in the absence of an Origin-Destination matrix. Findings suggest that, though car ownership was identified as the major factor, Car/Public transit travel time ratio is positively associated with the increase of public transit modal share. Furthermore, the Car/Public transit travel time ratio effect in public transit modal share consistently increases as people get increased access to cars.     

Spatially varying impacts of built environment factors on rail transit ridership at station level: A case study in Guangzhou,China

Understanding the relationship between the rail transit ridership and the built environment is crucial to promoting transit-oriented development and sustainable urban growth. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) models have previously been employed to reveal the spatial differences in such relationships at the station level. However, few studies characterized the built environment at a fine scale and associated them with rail transit usage. Moreover, none of the existing studies attempted to categorize the stations for policy-making considering varying impacts of the built environment. In this study, taking Guangzhou as an example, we integrated multi-source spatial big data, such as high spatial resolution remote sensing images, points of interest (POIs), social media and building footprint data to precisely quantify the characteristics of the built environment. This was combined with a GWR model to understand how the impacts of the fine-scale built environment factors on the rail transit ridership vary across the study region. The k-means clustering method was employed to identify distinct station groups based on the coefficients of the GWR model at the local stations. Policy zoning was proposed based on the results and differentiated planning guidance was suggested for different zones. These recommendations are expected to help increase rail transit usage, inform rail transit planning (to relieve the traffic burden on currently crowed lines), and re-allocate industrial and living facilities to reduce the commute for the residents. The policy and planning implications are crucial for the coordinated development of the rail transit system and land use.     

Residential property value impacts of proximity to transport infrastructure: An investigation of bus rapid transit and heavy rail networks in Brisbane,Australia

Public transport investment is normally targeted at increasing accessibility which land rent theory identifies and will in turn increase land values. There is a clear policy interest in how much land values increase following a new transport investment so as to establish if there is sufficient land value uplift to capture and to help pay or contribute to investment plans. Identifying an uplift for residential land has been well studied in the context of new light rail systems and bus rapid transit (BRT) systems in developing countries but there is little evidence for BRT in developed countries.This paper has two objectives. First, to examine long term impact of BRT in a developed world context in Brisbane, Australia. Brisbane's BRT uses an open system design which contrasts with the closed system design of the successful BRT systems in South America and elsewhere, including the BRT in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Second, BRT in Brisbane was introduced to a network already dominated by a radial heavy rail network and this investigation recognises that the uplift from BRT introduction may therefore be different to a BRT in a single mode city. A third motivation is to consider the spatial distribution of uplift which is an essential pre-requisite to understanding the distributional impact if uplift is used to contribute to infrastructure provision.Spatial modelling is used to examine the accessibility impacts of the BRT at a global level. This is followed by Geographical Weighted Regression, used to examine the spatial distribution of accessibility using a local model.The results show that there is greater uplift in Brisbane, as compared to that identified by studies of Sydney's BRT which is likely due to the greater network coverage of BRT in Brisbane and less strong competition of rail. Land value uplift is also spatially distributed over the network giving higher uplift in some areas than others and lower values than typically found with rail based systems in developed countries. However, the degree of uplift is relatively low, with proximity to BRT stations attracting more uplift than proximity to train stations.     

Urban rail operators in Turkey: Organisational reform in transit service provision and the impact on planning,operation and system performance

Many cities around the world have seen efforts to restructure the provision of public transport. While transit authorities as public agencies continue to deliver transit services in some cities, many others have privatised these services, have opened up the market to private operators or have outsourced them to newly founded subsidiaries. The situation is no different in Turkey, where new legislation was enacted in the 1980s enabling local authorities to establish corporate companies under their own agency, and to shift to them the entire responsibility for running certain public transport operations. The motivation is often to increase efficiency, productivity and profitability in these operations, although there is a risk that planning and operation may become fragmented under such organisational reforms, making it difficult to maintain coordination in planning and to ensure the provision of an integrated service. This paper analyses this organisational change in public transport in Turkey, focusing on the planning, operation and performance of urban rail systems in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir.     

Cost structures of public transit systems: a panel data analysis

Results from numerous cost studies have generated conflicting results on public transit production technologies. Because prior studies have employed various sub-samples of public transit properties, the diverse results may either reflect alternative technologies or sampling differences. Based on a panel of nearly all transit systems reporting for Section 15 (US National Transit Data) purposes from 1986 to 1994, this paper explores whether public transit production technology differs by size and operating characteristics of the system. The results indicate that US transit properties are heterogeneous with different production technologies, which implies that transit cost analyses based upon a set of heterogeneous systems will generate incorrect inferences on public transit cost and production structures.     

A comparative analysis of economic performance of US commercial airports

There have been various agreements between the US commercial airports and the airlines each of which has defined how the risk, responsibilities, and reward of running an airport should be shared among them. The airport–airline financial relationships at the nation’s commercial airports are based on four basic approaches: the residual cost, the compensatory, the hybrid, privatization approaches. In this paper, the authors provide a comprehensive review of airport–airlines financial agreements, and develop an analytical model to measure the financial performance of the US commercial airports. In general, compensatory airports have had a higher marginal contribution to profitability than residual airports.     

A comparative performance analysis of airline strategic alliances using data envelopment analysis

As “open skies” agreements became more common among different countries and thus began to open up international routes to further competition, the global airline industry has undergone accelerated structural changes for the last two decades. These changes include the consolidation and expansion of airline strategic alliances throughout different regions of the world. Though airline strategic alliances are generally perceived to be a major driver for enhancing the operating efficiency and the subsequent competitiveness of participating member airlines, the concrete evidence supporting such a perception is still lacking in the literature. This paper is one of few attempts to evaluate the comparative efficiency of the strategic alliances among global airlines and then assess the managerial impact of airline alliances on the airline's comparative performances.     

Shopping morphologies of urban transit station areas: A comparative study of central city station catchments in Toronto,San Francisco,and Melbourne

Synergies between shopping and public transit have long been noted, with main streets emerging along tram lines and shopping malls attached to train stations. The shopping-transit synergy is also at the core of transit-oriented development (TOD), a widespread planning approach to urban sustainability. However, there is a lack of morphological research investigating how shopping clusters around transit stations at a fine-geographic scale. This paper explores the shopping morphologies of three central-city subway station areas in Toronto, San Francisco, and Melbourne, mapping and measuring the extent of public and quasi-public shopfronts relative to the station. The morphological analysis of 200, 300, 400, and 500 m walking catchments shows that as the distance from the station increases, the proportion of shopfronts in the total catchment declines. Quasi-public shopping space can enhance the walkable catchment and permeability of a station area and may contribute to urbanity as long as it adds to diversity of access options. The findings highlight the role walkable shopping environments can play within urban transit station areas and show the importance of nuanced consideration being given to morphologies in the analysis and planning of TODs.     

Urban rail systems investments: an analysis of the impacts on property values and residents’ location

Light rail, metro and other urban rail transit systems can play a significant role in improving the attractiveness and quality of urban public transport. They can influence the attractiveness of locations near the stations and improve accessibility for these locations. Furthermore urban rail can improve a location’s attractiveness by its image effect: it makes a station appear modern and dynamic, and thus raises the status of this location.This paper summarises findings on the land-use and economic impacts of the urban rail system of the city of Naples over time and space. It examines changes in residential and non-residential (offices and retail) property prices around the newly built stations between 2001 and 2008 as well as the changes in the number of residents for the same station catchment areas. Ad hoc station control areas have been specified in order to compare the results of these changes. Results show that values in station control areas are lower than those of those of the stations catchment areas.     

A random utility maximization (RUM) based measure of accessibility to transit: Accurate capturing of the first-mile issue in urban transit

The paper presents a random utility-based measure of accessibility to explain the first-mile issue in urban transit. A discrete access stop/station location choice model is used to calculate the expected maximum utility of transit access choices as the measure of the proposed access to transit measurement approach. It captures the effects of changes in various personal, sociodemographic, transportation and land-use variables on access to urban transit that are overlooked by conventional approaches of accessibility measurements (count-based cumulative opportunities measures and gravity-based measures). The proposed accessibility to transit measurement approach is empirically measured for the Greater Toronto Area and is integrated into an operational tool programmed in a GIS-based traffic assignment software, TransCAD 7.0. This allows comparing it to the conventional measures, and the results reveal that the conventional measures tend to over-estimate access to transit.     

Economies of scale and density in urban rail transport: effects on productivity

This paper examines economies of scale and density in urban rail transport. It isolates the effects of constant and non-constant returns on output and productivity growth using data relating to 17 rail systems in cities around the world. Estimates reveal constant returns to scale but increasing returns to density. The productivity model shows that total factor productivity change has been of great importance in differentiating the output performance of urban rail systems. Our analysis of average labour productivity confirms the importance of shifts to other factors of production and technological change in explaining changing levels of output per worker.     

城际轨道交通多线引入的枢纽站设计理论与方法研究

以惠州客运北站、广州北站为工程实例,重点对城际轨道交通线网贯通运营为主的枢纽站进行分析研究,提出多线引入枢纽站以城市总体规划、综合交通规划为引导,与城市规划和谐共存,实现枢纽站与区间工程统筹协调和综合经济效益发挥,满足车站各类作业需要的综合逐级优化设计理论与方法,为同类项目的设计提供参考。     

Modelling the impact of alternative pricing policies on an urban multimodal traffic corridor

This paper investigates the effects of alternative or joint schemes of road pricing and parking pricing to verify if private behaviour in operating parking facilities, road tolling and transit systems can lead to profitable results in the private sector and for public welfare. The evaluation is carried out using an idealised urban multimodal traffic corridor with some numerical examples that show the effects of different pricing policies. A Deterministic User Equilibrium assignment procedure is used to calculate certain performance indicators such as user travel costs, social costs and private profit. The results show that the system is highly sensitive to pricing policy and that a proper joint pricing of park-and-ride facilities, city centre parking and road tolls can be developed to simultaneously attain good private and social benefits.     

Daily fluctuations in transit and job availability: A comparative assessment of time-sensitive accessibility measures

Accessibility to jobs by transit is increasingly incorporated into transportation and land-use planning objectives, as it is proven to be a relevant indicator for assessing land-use and transport performance. With a rise in time-sensitive accessibility measures, choosing the appropriate measure is increasingly challenging for engineers, planners and policy-makers. This research presents a comparative analysis of three accessibility measures, two of which are time-sensitive. Relative accessibility measures are generated for five time periods based on a) constant transit service and number of jobs (constant); b) variable transit service and constant number of jobs (static) and c) variable transit service and variable number of jobs available (dynamic). The measures are first assessed by incorporating them into a transit mode share model. Interestingly, findings show that all three measures behaved similarly in the three regression models. Furthermore, all accessibility measures are found to be highly correlated. The study suggests that the most commonly used accessibility measure (constant measure at 8 am) is representative of the relative accessibility (static or dynamic) over the course of the day and is thus appropriate and meaningful to be used by policy-makers, engineers and planners.     

An analysis of air mass effects on rail ridership in three US cities

This paper examines whether daily weather affects ridership in urban transportation systems. When examining human–weather relationships, it is often advantageous to examine air masses, which take into account the entire parcel of air over a region. Spatial synoptic classification characterizes air masses based upon numerous meteorological variables at a given location. Thus, rather than examining temperature or precipitation individually, here we compare daily ridership to synoptic air mass classifications for three urban rail systems: Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), and the Hudson–Bergen light-rail line in northern New Jersey. Air masses are found to have a significant impact on daily rail ridership, with usage typically increasing on dry, comfortable days and decreasing on moist, cool ones, particularly on weekends. Although the comfort of a particular air mass changes throughout the year, seasonality is not a significant factor with respect to the air mass–ridership relationship. The results of this study can benefit rail system managers who must predict daily ridership or in the development of cost-benefit analyses for station improvements.