Investigating the Impact of Dwell Time on the Reliability of Urban Light Rail Operations

Zoi Christoforou,Ektoras Chandakas,Ioannis Kaparias

doi:10.1007/s40864-020-00128-1

Zoi Christoforou, Ektoras Chandakas + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40864-020-00128-1

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Abstract

The present study investigates the determinants of vehicle dwell time at stations in urban light rail networks. Using data collected from an on-board automatic passenger counting system of the tramway network of the French city of Nantes over a long period, the study performs graphical and statistical analyses enabling the identification of cause-and-effect relationships of a number of attributes on the dwell time and its reliability. The results confirm the significance of the boarding and alighting passenger volumes, as well as of the on-board passenger loading, on the dwell time. Additional effects on dwell time are found from the vehicle type (low- or high-floor), the time of day (peak, off-peak, inter-peak) and the location of the station (city centre, proximity to points of interest). Also, it is found that operations are not symmetrical, and dwell times tend to be higher in one direction than the other of the same line. Finally, the results suggest that dwell time reliability is lower for stations located further from the starting terminal, or for stations located in the city centre.

Highlights

The fact that travel time in transport networks is not constant, but entails an element of variability, resulting in uncertainty when attempting to predict it, has long been recognised in the literature [1]
The present study investigates the determinants of vehicle dwell time at stations in urban light rail networks
Cornet et al [14] used a dataset acquired from automatic passenger counting (APC) and automatic vehicle locating (AVL) sensors on commuter rail to investigate the concept of minimum dwell time and estimate the conditional distribution of dwell time with respect to the passenger flows

Summary

Introduction

The fact that travel time in transport networks is not constant, but entails an element of variability, resulting in uncertainty when attempting to predict it, has long been recognised in the literature [1]. The importance of this uncertainty for travellers and operators alike has been investigated extensively over the past few decades While Eq 1 is widely used by public transport practitioners due to its simplicity, it does not include the particularities of different modes This matter boasts extensive literature, with each one of the different studies focusing on a single or on a number of determining factors of dwell time by mode (bus, light rail, metro and train). Currie et al [15] conducted a survey to establish a positive correlation between dwell time and on-board congestion

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