Solutions for Improving Transit through Intermodal Passenger Terminals

Abstract

According to the transport White Paper “better modal choices will result from greater integration of the modal networks: airports, ports, railway, metro and bus stations, should increasingly be linked and transformed into multimodal connection platforms for passengers.”Transport terminals are the junction points of local, regional or inter-regional transport. The main objective of a transport terminal is to serve the passengers’ demand by maintaining their safety and comfort. Intermodal terminals have emerged as a response or solution to the demands of sustainable development (reducing congestion should be the main objective), Bucharest ranks 5th in the world at congestion (according to Tomtom Traffic Index). The use of intermodality in passenger transport significantly reduces congestion in cities.Intermodal passenger terminals lead to reduced congestion but impair passenger quality parameters such as time, comfort, convenience and even travel’s cost because each mode of transport has its own pricing principles.The problem of reducing the transit time through these intermodal terminals is the key in making the public transport more attractive; the way the terminals are designed and organized leads to their intensive use or not. The paper presents a model for designing intermodal passenger terminals that encourage modal transfer. The model’s framework suppose the correlation of the transport modes timetables, placing the platforms so that the movements between them are as small as possible, tariff integration and the use of an unique ticket, etc.The model presented within the paper has been tested on a hypothetical intermodal passenger terminal that has benefitted by transport modes schedules correlation through a linear programming with integer numbers model.