Long haul freight network design using shipper–carrier freight flow prediction: A California network improvement case study

Transportation network design is a method for analyzing the interactive benefits of transportation projects applied to a network. In this paper, a network design model is developed for long haul freight movements which are represented by relationships between shippers and carriers. Additionally, an explicit capacity constraint is used to divert traffic volume from congested links. A case study based on the California transportation network is implemented to examine the effectiveness of this model when applied to a large network. A geographic information system is used to facilitate data management and analysis of the results.     

Contested values in bike-sharing mobilities – A case study from Sweden

The aim of this paper is to analyse the type of mobilities and subjects that are being promoted and constituted through bike-sharing systems. This is done through an analysis of the bike-sharing system in the city of Lund in Sweden. The analysis utilises Bacchi's What is the Problem Represented to be? framework and develops it through adding a spatial perspective. Departing from a critical velomobilities perspective, we argue that urban transport policies cannot merely be regarded as one specific and delimited reaction to well-defined policy problems. Instead, the ways that BSSs are, described, motivated – but also spatially organised – constitute which mobilities are produced. The analysis is based in an analysis of relevant policy documents, maps and observations. It is concluded that bike sharing is not seen as cycling and is rarely linked to cycling as such, but rather is seen as part of the public transport system. Further, it is concluded that the motivation behind the location of the stations is to facilitate the flow of workers to public transport, and promote attractiveness and tourism, thus constituting a strong belief in a win-win situation between sustainability and growth. Here prioritisation between different values, and the possible tensions between different social and environmental dimensions of sustainability is down-played.     

The transformation of a legacy carrier – A case study of Turkish Airlines

This study examines the metronomic rise of Turkish Airlines into a global carrier in the period following domestic deregulation and part privatisation. Using a comparative assessment of the carrier's network and its competitive strategies during the 2003–2013/2014 period it was found that Turkish Airlines now benefits from considerable network, cost, service and brand advantages over competing European and to a lesser extent Middle-Eastern airlines. Its network operation based in Istanbul Ataturk airport enjoys strong geographic and demographic advantages, which enables it to optimise the use of its large and young short-haul fleet between a significant number of domestic and international points. This study has important implications for partially or fully state owned legacy carriers as to how to gain competitive advantages in an increasingly open and liberal airline industry.     

An optimization approach to aircraft dispatching strategy with maintenance cost – A case study

This paper presents an optimization approach to identify aircraft dispatching strategy at a flight training school. The strategy adopted by the school was to dispatch the aircraft which is closest to its scheduled maintenance. This strategy was examined and compared with other potential dispatching strategies. The paper presents a mixed integer linear programming model to identify the strategy that minimizes the total cost of scheduled maintenance. The analysis shows that the optimization approach can save 2%–5% on annual maintenance cost compared with other strategies. The model can equally be applied to rental cars or trucking companies.     

To smile or not to smile – an eye-tracking study on service recovery

ABSTRACT

The effect of service with a smile on consumers is undoubtedly positive. Yet, in service failure and recovery, this remains unclear. This study examines the importance of morphological characteristics of a smile and different types of smile in service failure and recovery using eye-tracking technology. Results indicated that the degree of mouth activation and the gender of the service worker were crucial factors in service recovery. In addition, eye-tracking data revealed that the longest fixations occurred on smiles with teeth showing and eyes that produced crows’ feet wrinkles. Taken together, this suggests that eye tracking may identify optimal display of smile in service recovery.     

A case study of pricing strategies in European airline markets: The London – Amsterdam route

Published fares London–Amsterdam are used to examine the pricing practices of low-cost and legacy carriers when operating in a large and crowded market. We investigate two strategies of market segmentation involving the time before departure the ticket has been bought, inter-temporal segmentation, and the duration of the stay, implicit segmentation. We find inter-temporal price discrimination emerges as an important strategy for all pricing but the two legacy carriers involved, British Airways and KLM, differ in their use of stay restrictions; British Airways does not assign a specific role to the duration of stay, while KLM make use of such rules extensively in price setting.     

Analyzing passengers’ emotions following flight delays- a 2011–2019 case study on SKYTRAX comments

The text mining technology enables researchers or enterprises to automatically and efficiently access the information in text comments. This paper obtains 24,165 reviews from SKYTRAX between September 2011 and March 2019, 5700 of which express that passengers had experienced flight delays. It uses sentiment analysis based on a sentiment dictionary to classify user reviews and uses co-occurrence analysis to identify passengers' concerns on different aspects of service in the aviation industry. The results of the user sentiment analysis show that there is a significant and negative correlation between the user's emotions and their flight delay experiences. After flight delay, passengers' attention to the service aspects has increased, while satisfaction with the airport service has dropped dramatically. This paper shed some new light on public opinion about flight delays.     

Route optimization for energy efficient airport shuttle operations – A case study from Dallas Fort worth International Airport

The objective of this research is to reduce energy consumption from intra airport shuttle operations by optimizing routes and schedules, without compromising on passenger travel experience. To achieve this objective, we propose an optimization model that generates optimal airport shuttle routes for a given set of constraints and a discrete-event simulator that evaluates the optimal shuttle routes in a stochastic environment to understand the tradeoffs between the amount of time passengers wait for shuttles, and shuttle energy consumption. The proposed optimization model and stochastic simulation are tested using shuttle route data provided by the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Results indicate that optimized routes can lead to a 20% energy reduction in shuttle operations with a modest 2-min increase in average shuttle wait times. The optimization model and simulator presented here are designed to be generalizable and can be adapted to optimize shuttle operations at any major airport.     

Assessing High-Speed Rail’s impacts on land cover change in large urban areas based on spatial mixed logit methods: a case study of Madrid Atocha railway station from 1990 to 2006

This paper proposes an accessibility-based spatial mixed logit (SML) model with panel data structure to examine the impacts of High-Speed Rail (HSR) on land cover change in large urban areas. Using data between 1990 and 2006, impacts of the Spanish HSR on Madrid’s Atocha railway station influence area – a 20 km radius buffer centred on the station – were investigated. To model the HSR impacts, besides socioeconomic variables, the development of both local and regional transportation networks with corresponding accessibility improvement is also taken into account to segregate the impacts of land-cover change brought by different sources of accessibility measures. In this study, two SML models are used: one incorporates regional accessibility indicators as a base model, and the other does not, acting as a control model. The model estimation results reveal that the reduction of the local and regional weighted travel average time has positive impacts on the Atocha station catchment area’s urbanised land-cover rates. Although the base and control models both achieve high goodness-of-fit values, the base model that considers regional accessibility reveals a better goodness-of-fit statistic and is more robust than the control model. It is concluded that the improvement of regional accessibility due to the arrival of HSR at Atocha station plays an essential role in the urbanisation of land cover changes in the study area.     

Does bicycle network level of traffic stress (LTS) explain bicycle travel behavior? Mixed results from an Oregon case study

This paper draws on census data, mode choice, and regional household travel survey data to investigate the relationship between the varying levels of traffic stress (LTS) routes and bicycle travel behavior. Specifically, does bicycle level of traffic stress explain bicycle behavior enough to warrant its use given the limitations? Bicycle level of traffic stress is a new system of bicycle infrastructure classification for cities that cannot afford existing alternatives such as bicycle level of service which is more data-intensive. The LTS criteria lacks many of the input variables found significant in predicting both route choice and mode choice, including several that are required for its more expensive alternatives. The authors select the Salem-Keizer metropolitan area, a case study representative of the kinds of small and medium-sized communities that may prefer to use the LTS to evaluate cycling infrastructure given its lower input costs. The results validate LTS on travel behavior data from the Oregon Household Activity Survey (OHAS), but not mode choice data from the American Community Survey (ACS). These results suggest the LTS criteria may not be useful for cities looking to prioritize infrastructure improvements for specifically increasing commuter cycling. That said, results suggest the system provides a valid measure of a household's propensity to cycle. Further research on a broader cross-section of communities can clarify these mixed results.     

Optimizing transit maintenance and rehabilitation to support human development and sustainability: A case study of Costa Rica’s railroad network

Public transportation plays a critical role in improving human development and consequently the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by United Nations. Convenient and efficient transit enable inhabitants to reach labor markets, access social support facilities as well as health and education services. This study develops a decision-making support framework for transit agencies to select optimum maintenance, rehabilitation, and upgrade alternatives to accomplish good levels of service and improve human development and sustainability indexes. A case study of Costa Rica’s great metropolitan area is used to illustrate the study with various budget scenarios. The results show that the proposed system can accomplish significant improvements on both level of service and human development. It is also confirmed that the explicit consideration of human development and sustainability made a significant difference as compared to the classical approach, which only considers the level of service (LOS). The proposed model could be used by other public transit systems.     

The impact of emigrants’ homeland relations on air travel demand in a security volatile market: a case study on Lebanon

The impacts of international migration have been heavily studied. Much of this analysis has been carried out within the framework of the economic and social effects of migrants, to both host and home countries. This paper looks at the impact of Lebanese emigrants’ homeland relations on air travel demand in a security volatile market. The emphasis is on two particular features: first, the principal impact of liberal air transport policies in facilitating emigrants’ home visits; and second, the sensitivity of passenger-GDP relation. The paper pulls together data and other cases on the Lebanese emigration evolution and explains its impacts on the economy as well as on the air transport market in Lebanon. The study findings suggest that in Lebanon and due to the presence of interrelated factors, the variation and the strength of the relationship between traffic levels and GDP are neither consistent nor static. The considerably huge expatriate communities, which are three times greater than the Lebanese residents, are said to defy the negative impact of security instability on the air passenger growth through frequently visiting expats. Moreover, the emigrants’ economic support to Lebanon through remittance inflows is observed to dampen the sensitivity of the relationship between passenger and GDP in times of war and peace. The results should be looked at as indicative of trends to encourage policy makers to consider how best to make use of these human and financial flows.     

Influence of bus stop land use characteristics on passenger waiting time satisfaction ‐ A case study in Guangzhou

Researchers usually conduct a questionnaire survey at bus stops to obtain data regarding the satisfaction of bus passengers with waiting times. The results are affected by many factors. Among them, the land use of the bus stops was proved to have an important impact on the survey results. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of propensity score matching (PSM) into the evaluation of passenger waiting time satisfaction. By eliminating interference factors, this paper can quantify the impact of the various land use types of bus stops. On this basis, a method to modify the survey results of passenger waiting time satisfaction is proposed. This paper takes data pertaining to passenger satisfaction with bus service quality in Guangzhou City in 2018–2019 as an example, and the findings include that: different land use types of sites have different effects (positive or negative) on passenger waiting time scores. Also, matching propensity scores can balance the distribution of covariates between the treatment and control groups, effectively excluding the interference of other factors. After correcting the original rating results, this study found that 61.84% of the routes' waiting time ratings were overestimated. This finding indicates that data correction is necessary to accurately identify passenger waiting time ratings. The waiting time satisfaction of people using residential stations can best reflect the actual level. Therefore, it is suggested that stations with residential land use in each administrative area should be taken as representatives to conduct a waiting satisfaction survey.     

Peripheral market entry,product differentiation,supplier rents and sustainability in the deregulated European aviation market – a case study

Ryanair, in its net margin and passenger numbers compared with its national airline, is the most successful new airline in Europe. The history of the airline is examined briefly and the Ryanair product is analysed. The airline has developed a very low fare product with high staff productivity. It has also tackled costs to airlines of services such as airports, handling, reservations and ticket retailing. Ireland’s island location was an attractive base for a low cost airline and rapid traffic growth has resulted from Ryanair’s entry to the market. The paper examines the sustainability of the low fare Ryanair product in respect of passenger preference, labour markets, and external costs such as airports and reservations. The optimum regulatory environment for the successful operation of low cost airlines is examined in the light of the Ryanair experience.     

Residents’ perceptions of tourism development – implications for small economies business: the case study of Ali Sadr,Iran

Ali Sadr Cave is the world's largest water cave and is a protected national heritage of Iran. This paper examines the residents’ perceptions of tourism development. In total, 250 residents of Ali Sadr village were interviewed. To improve the economic outcomes of the exchange between individuals from various cultural backgrounds, it is important to resolve the conflicts between residents and international tourists. In the management of tourism in the region, the local people who strongly support tourism development are not involved much. This paper concludes with recommendations for tourism managers to improve the economic outcomes of local people through tourism development.     

Micromobility evolution and expansion: Understanding how docked and dockless bikesharing models complement and compete – A case study of San Francisco

Shared micromobility – the shared use of bicycles, scooters, or other low-speed modes – is an innovative transportation strategy growing across the United States that includes various service models such as docked, dockless, and e-bike service models. This research focuses on understanding how docked bikesharing and dockless e-bikesharing models complement and compete with respect to user travel behaviors. To inform our analysis, we used two datasets from February 2018 of Ford GoBike (docked) and JUMP (dockless electric) bikesharing trips in San Francisco. We employed three methodological approaches: 1) travel behavior analysis, 2) discrete choice analysis with a destination choice model, and 3) geospatial suitability analysis based on the Spatial Temporal Economic Physiological Social (STEPS) to Transportation Equity framework. We found that dockless e-bikesharing trips were longer in distance and duration than docked trips. The average JUMP trip was about a third longer in distance and about twice as long in duration than the average GoBike trip. JUMP users were far less sensitive to estimated total elevation gain than were GoBike users, making trips with total elevation gain about three times larger than those of GoBike users, on average. The JUMP system achieved greater usage rates than GoBike, with 0.8 more daily trips per bike and 2.3 more miles traveled on each bike per day, on average. The destination choice model results suggest that JUMP users traveled to lower-density destinations, and GoBike users were largely traveling to dense employment areas. Bike rack density was a significant positive factor for JUMP users. The location of GoBike docking stations may attract users and/or be well-placed to the destination preferences of users. The STEPS-based bikeability analysis revealed opportunities for the expansion of both bikesharing systems in areas of the city where high-job density and bike facility availability converge with older resident populations.     

The impact of low-cost carriers on airport choice in the US: A case study of the Washington–Baltimore region

Previous research has shown that low-cost carriers (LCCs) may stimulate traffic at an airport by offering low fares. Using passenger survey data from the Washington–Baltimore region’s three airports, we find that the benefits of LCCs to airports extend beyond the traffic generated directly by the LCCs through their low fares. In addition, we find that the mere presence of an LCC at an airport can attract passengers, even to competing carriers. These “halo effects” from LCC presence increase the significance to airport managers of attracting LCCs in order to generate passenger demand.     

The role of schedule delays on passengers’ choice of access modes: A case study of Japan’s international hub airports

We empirically study passenger modal-choice behavior to access an international hub airport, by using stated preference (SP) data and by constructing a binomial logit model. We found that passenger modal choice is affected by the service level of the access modes: travel time, travel cost, waiting time, and delay cost. The results also indicate that if passengers choose access mode in advance they consider service frequency: departure timing from home, and the arrival timing at the airport. Moreover, our results indicate that travelers’ willingness to pay for saving time differs by time of a day. They are apt to pay more in the morning than in the afternoon. These outcomes must contribute to improve the access flight service from local to hub airports to handle the needs of passengers.     

How vehicle ownership affect time utilization on study,leisure, social activities,and academic performance of university students? A case study of engineering freshmen in a rural university in Thailand

This study aims to investigate how the ownership of a private vehicle influences time utilization of university students, and whether it impacts their academic performance. This research analyzes travel/activity patterns of 130 engineering freshman students at a rural university in Thailand. An analysis of travel/activity data shows that vehicle ownership seems to play an important role in university student’s time utilization on various activities. It was found that those students who own a vehicle tend to spend less time for academic purposes, and more on leisure and social activities than non-owner students. Nevertheless, a further study using regression analysis on academic performance shows that the ownership of a vehicle does not seem to have a significant impact on the grade point average of students, once the cognitive ability and gender are accounted for. The findings imply that campus policies/measures that restrict the ownership or usage of a private vehicle in rural universities would improve the campus learning environment by influencing university students to put more attention on school-related activities, but such policies do not seem to impact on the academic performance of the college students.