Demand-responsive transit circulator service network design

Commuter rail systems are being introduced into many urban areas as an alternative mode to automobiles for commuting trips. It is anticipated that the shift from the auto mode to rail mode can greatly help alleviate traffic congestion in urban road networks. However, the right-of-way of many existing commuter rail systems is usually not ideally located. Since the locations of rail systems were typically chosen long ago to serve the needs of freight customers, the majority of current commuter rail passengers have to take a non-walkable connecting trip to reach their final destinations after departing the most conveniently located rail stations. To make rail a more viable commuting option and thus more competitive to the auto mode, a bus feeder or circulator system is proposed for transporting passengers from their departing rail stations to final work destinations in a seamless transfer manner. The key research question with operating such a bus circulator system is how to optimally determine a bus route and stopping sequence for each circulating tour by using the real-time demand information. In this paper, we name this joint routing and stopping optimization problem the circulator service network design problem, the objective of which is to minimize the total tour cost incurred to bus passengers and operators with respect to minimizing the walk time of each individual bus passenger. A bi-level nonlinear mixed integer programming model is constructed and a tabu search method with different local search strategies and neighborhood evaluation methods is then developed for tackling the circulator service network design problem.     

Latent class models of international air carrier choice

This paper uses a market segmentation approach to identify airline passengers’ potential segments and preferences toward international air carriers. The modeling approaches consist of the stated preference method and the latent class model. The stated choice experiments were designed based on service attributes in the international airline choice context. Empirical data was collected from airline passengers who have flown from Taipei to Tokyo or from Taipei to Hong Kong. The latent class model accommodating preference heterogeneity outperforms the multinomial logit model as indication of a better approach to analyze airline choice behavior. The latent class model with individual socioeconomic and trip characteristics in segment membership functions also improved model fit relative to the corresponding latent class model without individual characteristics. The values of willingness to pay for service attribute improvements vary across international air routes and segments. Passengers are willing to pay more for better service quality. In order to develop effective marketing and operational strategies for the international air travel market, this study highlights the importance of exploring airline choice behaviors by routes and segments.     

Analysing the spatial-temporal characteristics of bus travel demand using the heat map

As the basic travel service for urban transit, bus services carry the majority of urban passengers. The characterisation of urban residents' transit trips can provide a first-hand reference for the evaluation, management and planning of public transport. Over the past two decades, data from smart cards have become a new source of travel survey data, providing more comprehensive spatial-temporal information about urban public transport trips. In this paper, a multi-step methodology for mining smart card data is developed to analyse the spatial-temporal characteristics of bus travel demand. Using the bus network in Guangzhou, China, as a case study, a smart card dataset is first processed to quantitatively estimate the travel demand at the bus stop level. The term ‘bus service coverage’ is introduced to map the bus travel demand from bus stops to regions. This dataset is used to create heat maps that visualise the regional distribution of bus travel demand. To identify the distribution patterns of bus travel demand, two-dimensional principal component analysis and principal component analysis are applied to extract the features of the heat maps, and the Gaussian mixture model is used for the feature clustering. The proposed methodology visually reveals the spatial-temporal patterns of bus travel demand and provides a practical set of visual analytics for transit trip characterisation.     

机场进出场客流量分配模型及方法研究

以机场出发旅客为研究对象,分析不同交通方式下旅客进出场出行成本对交通方式选择的影响,构建了机场进出场不同交通方式下交通工具选择的均衡配流模型,并设计了求解该模型的灵敏度分析方法.构建模型主要基于旅客的选择行为,能够定量反映不同交通工具出行费用与其流量分担率间的变化关系.算例结果表明,构建的模型及其求解方法可行、有效.     

Extending public transit accessibility models to recognise transfer location

A longstanding issue for public transit agencies has been how to assess the performance of transit service including spatial service coverage to meet the transport needs of the community. The conventional approach quantifies accessibility using door-to-door travel time in such a way that accessibility declines as the travel time to the opportunity increases. A new approach to modelling transit accessibility is proposed by incorporating the potential effect of transfer location. It builds on the premise that transit users may have a preference for a transfer location best located relative to the trip origin and destination points. The model is tested in Brisbane's bus network which has a radial form, where inner-city suburbs have relatively higher accessibility than outer-city suburbs, if only travel time is counted. Incorporating the transfer location refines the accessibility modelling so that some outer-city suburbs located along the major bus corridors have a relatively higher accessibility level. The new model also suggests that inner-city suburbs do not necessarily have better accessibility. Suburbs close to the city centre may have shorter transit travel time to reach other suburbs, but they do not have a well-connected transit network to other suburbs through service transfers.     

Improving bus service quality and information in Winchester

This paper reports the results of a package of measures, contained within a quality bus partnership (QBP), designed to improve bus service quality and information on three city centre routes in Winchester, including the Park and Ride (P&R) service. These measures were implemented by Hampshire County Council, Stagecoach Bus Company and Winchester City Council as part of the EU sponsored MIRACLES project, which ran from 2002 to 2006 and whose aims included reducing the environmental impacts of transport at the local level while increasing urban accessibility.These measures included the introduction of new buses, increasing the frequency of one of the main city centre bus routes, new bus infrastructure such as new shelters and poles, physical improvements to the bus/rail interchange and the printing of pocket travel maps. In addition, one of the P&R car parks was extended so that the capacity of the scheme was doubled. The objectives of this work package were to contribute to an 8% increase in bus patronage and the satisfaction rating of bus passengers on the QBP routes as well as integrating public transport services more effectively within Winchester.A review was carried out of bus travel and users’ needs, quality bus partnerships, bus-based P&R schemes and the importance of frequency of service to increasing patronage.In order to evaluate the effects of these measures, data were collected from the bus operator Stagecoach regarding patronage, reliability and the average age of the fleet. In addition, two bus questionnaire surveys were carried out to assess passenger's views to changes made to these three city centre bus services. An evaluation of the QBP routes was made to see how quickly investments made in purchasing the new buses and extending the P&R car park would be recovered. Conclusions and recommendations have been made with regard to the effectiveness of the changes made to the three bus city centre services as well as their cost effectiveness.     

Measuring accessibility to health care services for older bus passengers: A finer spatial resolution

Health care accessibility is a vital indicator for evaluating areas where there are medical shortages. However, due to the lack of population data with a satisfactory spatial resolution, efforts to accurately measure health care accessibility among older individuals have been hampered to some extent. To address this issue, we attempt to measure accessibility to health care services for older bus passengers in Nanjing, China, using a finer spatial resolution. More specifically, based on one month's worth of bus smart card data, a framework for identifying the home stations (i.e., a passenger's preferred station near their residence) of older passengers is developed to measure the aggregate demand at the bus stop scale. On this basis, a measurement that integrates the Gaussian two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) and the adjusted 2SFCA methods (referred to as the adjusted Gaussian 2SFCA method) is proposed to measure accessibility to health care services for older people. The results show that: (1) almost all home stations experience inflated demand, especially those located in the suburbs; (2) despite abundant health care resources, home stations in urban districts are rarely identified as high accessibility stations, due to high demand densities among the older population; and (3) more attention should be paid to two types of home stations – those with a medical institution and those with bed shortages, respectively. The first type is predominantly distributed in the periphery of the city, in the suburbs where the travel time required to access the nearest health care service by bus is longer. The second type is mostly located in the outskirts of urban districts and in the central area of one suburb. These findings could help policy makers to implement more appropriate measures to design and reallocate health care resources.     

Catchment if you can: The effect of station entrance and exit locations on accessibility

The success of passenger railway systems depends on their ridership and thus the population they serve. A mechanism to increase ridership is to expose the existing system to more people by reconfiguring the station itself, for instance by adding extra entrance and exit gates to shorten the walking distance from a trip's origin or its final destination. Gates are key nodes giving pedestrians access from street network to boarding/alighting facilities and vice versa. Stations and platforms are places not points, passengers may spend up to 6 min a trip walking between platforms and the end of the station nearest their origin or destination. This study systematically evaluates the accessibility of train stations and the effect of constructing an additional ‘far-side’ gate at stations with a single ‘near-side’ entrance. A three-step approach is defined to generate an isochrone as the catchment area for any transport node. Results indicate that stations with a single gate along their platforms (usually on one end of them) have the potential to increase the accessibility to jobs and population by around 10% on average. Due to the walking network and land use characteristics, some stations will benefit more significantly by retrofitting a new gate. Also, four linear regression models are developed to illustrate the effect of expanded accessibility on the number of entries and exits at each station for two peak periods. Then, stations are ranked based on their added ridership, which can help authorities to prioritize the development and allocating resources.     

The value and effects of introducing high standard train and bus concepts in Blekinge, Sweden

A set of improvements were introduced on a railway line in the south of Sweden in January 1992, including a new train concept, improved timetable and lower fares. The new train replaced a combination of old rail cars and standard coaches (bus). Furthermore, 18 months later, a new high comfort coach (bus) service was introduced as a complement to the train timetable to increase the number of departures. Forecasts from a national four-step model system, based on Revealed Preference data, which did not cover explanatory factors like mode concept, comfort, mode image, was made and compared with a forecast based on stated preference data choice model. Both type of forecasts were compared to travel statistics. Stated Preference data have been collected from car drivers, coach and train passengers. The set of improvements have been included in the SP alternatives presented to the subjects. A structured logit model, a regression model and a linear programming model are compared. Unstructured and structured logit models are compared. Logit models have been estimated and used to form a mode choice model which predicts the changes in market shares between the train and car. The choice model forecast coincide, accidentally, with actual demand 8–9 months after the introduction of the set of improvements (a 40% increase in journeys). The set of improvements, including the new train service, has proven to be a success with more than 100% increase in travel after only two years of operation. Differences in estimated logit models for 1991 and 1992 are explained as partly due to asymmetry effects and partly to shortcomings in the SP data collection technique. Logit model estimates for train and coach are compared. The value of high standard coach service, running in parallel to the train, is estimated. The new coach gained few new passengers and also a much lower monetary value than the train by both train and bus passengers.     

Impact of bus rapid transit on housing price and accessibility changes in Sydney: A repeat sales approach

ABSTRACT

New public transport infrastructure is expected to improve accessibility for local residents, and thus contribute to increased land value. The contribution that a bus rapid transit (BRT) system can make to increased land value is less certain than for rail-based systems, with the literature mostly containing bus-based examples from developing countries with extensive BRT networks. This article considers a BRT system named the Liverpool–Parramatta Transitway (LPT) that was implemented in southwestern Sydney in 2003 to improve public transport accessibility in the local area. A repeat sales model is constructed to investigate the impact of the LPT on residential housing prices and accessibility changes using repeat sales data from before and after the opening of the LPT. This identified little price difference between properties close to LPT stations and outside of the area that could be considered as affected by the LPT service coverage. This outcome is at variance with the theoretical underpinning of land value uplift and other empirical evidence relating to the LPT. Hedonic models using the same repeat sales data investigate the study area in more detail, stratifying the sample by housing type and by comparing separate before and after models. These research outcomes identify the extent to which the BRT system has an impact on local housing prices through accessibility improvements to the study area and provide a deeper understanding as to how the quantification of land value uplift from BRT represents one element of the wider economic benefits of a BRT system.     

Exploring the impacts of land use by service coverage and station-level accessibility on rail transit ridership

In this study, we employ spatial regression analysis to empirically investigate the impacts of land use, rail service coverage, and rail station accessibility on rail transit ridership in the city of Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan region. Our analyses suggest that a rail transit service coverage boundary of 500 m provides the best fit for estimating rail transit ridership levels. With regard to land use, our results confirm that density is positively related to rail transit ridership within a 750 m radius of each station. In contrast, land use diversity is not associated with rail transit ridership. We also found that station-level accessibility is as important as land use for explaining rail transit ridership levels. Finally, we conclude that development density and station-level accessibility measures such as the number of station entrances or exits and the number of bus routes at the station are the most important and consistent factors for promoting rail transit ridership.     

Examining the influence of stop level infrastructure and built environment on bus ridership in Montreal

We studied transit ridership from the perspective of the transit provider, with the objective of quantifying the influence of transit system operational attributes, transportation system infrastructure attributes and built environment attributes on the disaggregate stop level boardings and alightings by time of day for the bus transit system in the Montreal region. A Composite Marginal Likelihood (CML) based ordered response probit (ORP) model, that simultaneously allows us to incorporate the influence of exogenous variables and potential correlations between boardings and alightings across multiple time periods of the day is employed. Our results indicate that headway affects ridership negatively, while the presence of public transportation around the stop has a positive and significant effect. Moreover, parks, commercial enterprises, and residential area, amongst others, have various effects across the day on boardings and alightings at bus stops. An elasticity analysis provides useful insights. Specifically, we observe that the most effective way to increase ridership is to increase public transport service and accessibility, whereas enhancements to land use have a smaller effect on ridership. The framework from our analysis provides transit agencies a mechanism to study the influence of transit accessibility, transit connectivity, transit schedule alterations (to increase/reduce headway), and land-use pattern changes on ridership.     

Public transport pre-pay tickets: Understanding passenger choice for different products

Growing cashless services in the Sydney metropolitan region are motivated by the clear supply-side benefits associated with the prepayment of public transport fares. This paper examines the effect on prepay following the ‘MyZone’ fare and ticket reform in New South Wales introduced in April 2010. ‘MyZone’, introduced two new discounted and standardised prepay products, including a new, multimode ticket. Whilst these changes had implications for all public transport providers in the Sydney Metropolitan area, it had significant ramifications for the many private bus operators who, for the first time, could provide and accept tickets, which integrated their services with the state-run rail, ferry and bus network.With empirical data collected from two surveys of passengers of a private bus operator in northern Sydney this study analyses the ticket purchasing behaviour of passengers both before the fare reform, when passengers only had access to operator-specific prepay products, and post-MyZone, when the new standardised prepay products were available. The results clearly show there are significant differences in the characteristics of passengers using multi-modal versus pay-as-you-go tickets and that this difference is driven largely by age, income and whether or not the journey involved interchange. Prior to MyZone, prepay users were easily predicted and the fare and ticket reform was successful in transitioning some cash users to prepay but prepay users were no longer predictable unless separated into prepay product groups. This suggests that a policy designed to exploit the supply-side benefits associated with cashless services needs to consider that introducing only one prepay product will not address the market need of frequent users. Passengers who continued to pay cash after the fare and ticket reform showed high sensitivity to public transport cost and are those passengers with the lowest incomes. This raises policy questions of how to mitigate against the upfront costs often associated with prepay to transition less affluent, but frequent passengers, onto cashless ticketing.     

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.     

基于时段偏好的高速铁路列车停站方案双层规划方法

旅客出行需求不断提高,需要同时考虑旅客出行时段选择与运输企业效益,来优化调整高速铁路列车停站方案。针对一条拥挤的高速铁路客运走廊,分时段确定列车停站计划和开行频率,阐述影响旅客出行时段偏好的2个重要因素——吸引度与可达度,据此构建旅客出行阻抗函数,构建双层规划模型,上层规划是以运营成本最小为目标的整数规划模型,用于确定列车停站方案;下层规划是一个用户平衡模型,用于计算客流在停站方案上的分配结果。根据模型特点设计启发式算法,并通过算例对模型和算法进行验证和分析。研究表明,考虑旅客出行时段偏好优化高速铁路列车停站方案的方法,能更好地匹配旅客需求分布,为旅客提供优质服务。     

The interplay between dockless bikeshare and bus for small-size cities in the US: A case study of Ithaca

As another mode of shared transportation, bikeshare can substitute or complement public transit. Prior studies mainly relied on self-reported survey data or aggregated station-level data from docked bikeshare systems, and their conclusions and implications were focused on large cities. It is largely unknown how and to what extent a dockless bikeshare system complements or substitutes public transit, especially in small cities. This study was set to measure the interplay between Lime dockless bikeshare and bus service in Ithaca, NY – a typical small-size college town – and its environs. By joining about 3.42 million records of bus stop data and 102 thousand Lime bikeshare trip data from 2019, two types of Bikeshare-Bus-Linkage (BBL) trips were identified, namely (1) the first-mile trip where a user rides a Lime to board a bus, and (2) the last-mile trip where a user bikes to their destination after alighting a bus. BBL trips were identified using a spatiotemporal proximity framework based on two important parameters: the catchment radius and the time window between a bus stop event and a Lime trip. Different values were tested with a sensitivity analysis, and the parameters were finally set at 100 ft. and 5 min. As such, 3026 BBL trips were identified, which was 3% of total Lime ridership or 0.1% of total bus ridership. Our findings indicated that Lime provided useful first- and last-mile transfers to bus service for commuters. The complementary effect was particularly strong in the urban core and with transit development and employment land use areas. Moreover, in the morning peak, there were more first-mile trips from residential areas to bus stops in the urban core, while in the evening peak more last-mile trips started from bus stops in the urban core to residential areas. Based on the unique first-mile and last-mile trip patterns identified, policy implications and recommendations for bikeshare operators, local government, transit agencies, and transportation policymakers were discussed to better integrate bikeshare and public transit.     

Air accessibility and growth – The economic effects of a capacity expansion at Vienna International Airport

We use an econometric endogenous growth model to estimate the impact of air accessibility on GDP and investment growth. This is done in a dynamic panel system estimation framework for the EU-15 between 1993 and 2006. The results are then used to predict the economic effects of an increase in capacity at the Vienna International Airport using actual forecasts of the required information set. We find a GDP elasticity of air accessibility of 0.014 and an investment elasticity of 0.05 for our sample. Given the official passenger forecast this would lead to additional GDP growth in Austria of accumulated 0.81% based on the values of the restricted scenario (no third runway). In a more conservative forecast scenario of 3% annual passenger growth, a third runway is projected to increase GDP by 0.2% by 2040.     

Exploring the role of worker income and workplace characteristics on the journey to work

Traditional trip distribution processes that rely heavily on gravity models fail to capture how the characteristics of individuals or the heterogeneity in the attributes of attraction zones may influence the accessibility to jobs and, therefore, journey-to-work patterns. Different approaches, such as destination choice models, are not generally applied because of limited data availability and calibration requirements. This paper proposes an alternative approach to overcome this challenge by combining a utility-based measure of accessibility and a maximum range of commuting distance to predict the journey-to-work patterns of individual worker-agents using an open-access database. A multinomial logit model is estimated and an agent-based model is developed using data from the Census Transportation Planning Products (CTPP) 5-year database. The proposed methodology is demonstrated using a case study based on Tippecanoe County, Indiana, and the results are compared to a double-constrained gravity model. Results indicate that the utility functions derived from the CTPP database can replicate the aggregated journey-to-work patterns by income levels. Furthermore, it was found that the utility functions for low-, middle-, and high-household income groups could be different. Finally, while a calibrated gravity model could produce a trip-length distribution and average commuting distance more similar to observed data, the destination choice model provides more insights into the trip patterns across different household income groups, thereby providing a better basis for policy analysis.     

‘Mobility work’: Older adults' experiences using public transportation

This paper contributes to research on public transport accessibility, disabling spaces, and older adult's mobility by highlighting the ‘mobility work’ older adults complete to meet their daily travel needs. Drawing on a systematic and inductive analysis of semi-structured interviews with older adult (65+ years of age) public transit users in Hamilton, Canada, we argue that older adults are faced with mobility work that younger and/or more able-bodied people do not routinely encounter as they meet (or attempt to meet) their daily travel needs using public transportation. Key components of older adults' trips that involve mobility work include walking to and from the bus stop, trip planning, stepping onto/ off of the bus, finding a seat, carrying items on the bus, calling a stop, and travelling in winter conditions. This mobility work can be categorized as physical (e.g., struggling to board the bus), emotional (e.g., worrying about getting a seat), or spatiotemporal (e.g., staying home when the weather is bad). Taken together, this paper puts forward a multidimensional concept of ‘mobility work’ to aid in considering accessibility at the scale of both the individual and the built environment. Further, by highlighting mobility work, this paper demonstrates the ways in which public transport spaces can be disabling for aging bodies and outlines concrete measures public transit agencies can take to make services more accessible to older adult riders.     

Changes in car and bus usage amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Relationship with land use and land price

This study aimed to explore the impacts of COVID-19 on car and bus usage and their relationships with land use and land price. Large-scale trip data of car and bus usage in Daejeon, South Korea, were tested. We made a trip-chain-level data set to analyze travel behavior based on activity-based travel volumes. Hexagonal cells were used to capture geographical explanatory variables, and a mixed-effect regression model was adopted to determine the impacts of COVID-19. The modeling outcomes demonstrated behavioral differences associated with using cars and buses amid the pandemic. People responded to the pandemic by reducing their trips more intensively during the daytime and weekends. Moreover, they avoided crowded or shared spaces by reducing bus trips and trips toward commercial areas. In terms of social equity, trips of people living in wealthier areas decreased more than those of people living in lower-priced areas, especially trips by buses. The findings contribute to the previous literature by adding a fundamental reference for the different impacts of pandemics on two universal transportation modes.