Public Transport Alternatives Research Articles

Evaluation of alternative public transportation systems in Izmit urban transportation via axiomatic design method

In the world and in our country, most of urban transportation is performed by public transportation. Public transportation is a system which provides transportation easiness and opportunity to people, not to vehicles. Therefore, giving priority to public transportation system is necessary in organizing urban transportation. In this study, in order to reduce traffic intensity and to facilitate passenger transportation in Izmit urban transportation, It is tried to determine appropriate public transportation system. For this, firstly, alternatives which could be used for public transportation were determined. These alternatives are metro, metrobus, tram, light rail system and monorail. Afterwards, the variables affecting decision making about public transportation were determined. These variables are cost, transportation line features, vehicle characteristics, sensitivity to environment and customer satisfaction. Lastly, most appropriate public transportation system is proposed by using the axiomatic design method. As a result, light trail system and metrobus are determined as the most appropriate alternatives for Izmit public transportation system. Keywords: Urban transportation, Multi criteria decision making, Axiomatic design

Sustainable mobility in Lyon: should we hang private car drivers?

Incriminated for negative externalities such as both local and global pollution, noise, sealing extension or public space high consumption, private cars have been perceived as a factor of un-sustainable mobility since the early 80’s by urban planners and designers. In the new paradigm of the so-called “sustainable city” urban planners and designers target now a modification of social behaviour and particularly social mobility practices. The production of transport alternatives and restrictions to automobiles in city centres through car-parking limitations and fare systems as developed in urban mobility plans (Plans de Deplacements Urbains) are unfortunately too weak to generate a modal shift ripple-effect in French cities. Considering the last issue of the French national institute of statistics and economic studies’ survey (Hubert, 2009) the modal-share in favour of car-transit remains the same for the period of time between 1994 and 2008 for the biggest French cities, in spite of steady efforts for the development of public transportation alternatives such as the diffusion of the tramway’s comeback (from Grenoble 1986, to Dijon 2013). According to a series of relatively recent research papers (Kaufmann, 2002 ; Lefevre & Offner, 1990) focused on the “economically irrational” behaviour of the majority of private-car drivers concerning the question of modal shift, a research framework has been developed. This frameworks specially focuses on the disconnect between the rationalities of resistant car-driver’s social mobility practices in the metropolitan space, compared to the rationale of urban mobility masterplans has, assuming that user’s “tactics” answer planner’s “strategies” (De Certeau, 1990). This approach of identifying this disconnect between rationalities in planning and rationalities in social practices in the urban mobility context is aimed to extend to the complex perception of urban environments by car-drivers, to identify new targets of modal-split policies to be structured as new action-levers. This perception will deal with several issues orchestrated through urban design projects such as public spaces, physical distances or parking constraints. The second main issue of this conceptual framework deals with rationalities of user’s mobility practices. The axiological rationality (Boudon, 1995) seems to be heuristic to question values and practices, searching for the rationale behind the conclusions that users draw when making mobility decisions (for example “the car is faster in my situation”). This justification process needs to be finely analyzed in combination with several concepts, norms and values that “make sense” for the individual. We propose the hypothesis that the combination of perception biases and axiological rationalities could helps to explain behaviors defined as “irrational” for urban mobility planners and to delineate the major levers of social acceptation and adoption of so-called sustainable urban environments.

Aplicação do Método Paraconsistente de Decisão na Seleção de Tecnologias de Transporte Público Urbano

Resumo Este trabalho tem como objetivo propor uma metodologia para seleção das diversas alternativas de transporte público, baseando-se na aplicação da lógica paconsistente em processos decisórios na área de planejamento de transportes. Utilizou-se o Método Paraconsistente de Decisão (MPD) como instrumento de apoio na seleção para o Eixo Sul do Distrito Federal (DF), no qual os especialistas da área de transportes avaliaram os critérios para cada modo, sendo a interpretação das avaliações realizadas na avaliação dos baricentros no quadrado unitário do plano cartesiano (QUPC). Com a aplicação do MPD na seleção de tecnologias de transporte verificou-se que todas as tecnologias de transporte pertencem a região de quase verdade tendendo ao paracompleto, tendo como análise não conclusiva. No entanto, na comparação das tecnologias, verifica-se a que possui maior grau de certeza é o Veículo Leve sobre Trilhos (VLT).

Young drivers’ night-time mobility preferences and attitude toward alcohol consumption: A Hybrid Choice Model

This paper proposes an analysis of mobility preferences of young people at nighttime. In OECD countries in the last decades, data show that road crashes are the single biggest cause of death of 15–24 years-old drivers. On average, over 8500 young drivers were killed each year and it is demonstrated that the accidents tend to occur on weekend nights and when young people drive under the influence of alcohol.Focusing on the demand for mobility, we approach the problem from several points of view, concentrating on the relationship between attitudes towards alcohol and some of the most common countermeasures implemented to address young-driver risk. In particular, we examine the potential demand of young drivers for new modes of public transport, understand their preferences for plans designed to reduce and/or prevent the number of risky situations. Our analysis covers different aspects of private modes of transport, including amounts of fines and police checkpoints. We also investigate the characteristics of existing and available public transport systems (e.g. fares and levels of services).Through a Stated Preferences experiment (SP), we collected young people’s preferences about nighttime mobility within our application area (Lugano, Switzerland).Using the Hybrid Choice Models technique, we developed an approach and we estimated a model designed to incorporate simultaneously three dimensions of the problem: attributes of the alternatives, characteristics of young drivers, and alcohol-related psychological variables.Our estimates suggest that, first, there are young drivers who are willing to choose public alternatives; secondly, the countermeasures considered can increase their number; and, thirdly, people with a higher attitude to alcohol are more willing to switch to new public transport alternatives and more sensitive to “Drinking and Driving Do not Mix” policies. Action plans developed on the basis of these findings and on the relevance of the psychological component will have a better chance to succeed.

The impact of transportation alternatives on the decision to cease driving by older adults in Japan

This study investigated whether the availability of transportation alternatives for older drivers is a determinant of the decision to cease driving. We recruited participants from a total of 7827 drivers aged 69 years or older living in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan who were scheduled to renew their driving license between February and April 2011. In November 2010, we distributed questionnaires to collect data on predictors of driving cessation, and again in December 2012 to determine who had actually ceased driving. The relative impacts of factors related to driving cessation were then estimated. Of the 3089 respondents, 157 did not renew their license. The strongest determinants of this decision were having been advised to stop driving and if they had developed less confidence in their ability to drive safely. Even so, respondents were far more likely to have actually stopped driving if they were sure that someone else was available to provide a ride when they needed one. The final decision to stop driving is strongly influenced by personal convenience based on private transport, especially amongst drivers who have been advised to stop. The availability of public transport alternatives is not as important a factor in this decision.

Context-based service for intelligent public transportation systems

Nowadays, cities become ever more populated, starting to represent an enormous source of pollution, congestion and overcrowding. Technology is evolving at a very fast speed; most of the people have a smartphone and are using it on a daily basis. In this paper, we describe a service designed to assist citizens take informed decisions regarding the means of transportation, to make them more aware of public transportation alternatives. We propose techniques to deal with mobility of people (monitor individual and group travelling conditions), and propose alternative means of transportation considering the active use of context information. The idea is to use the mobile apps capable of understanding the user's environment and reacting accordingly.

Liberalization of the Interurban Coach Market in Germany: Do Attitudes and Perceptions Drive the Choice between Rail and Coach?

In January 2013 the interurban passenger transport market in Germany was liberalized and several coach carriers emerged offering an alternative to the Deutsche Bahn, a state owned rail monopoly. The coach carriers have attempted to position themselves not just through lower prices but also through product differentiation, for example marketing their services as the most ecological way to travel. Hence, it is important to consider attitudes and perceptions when analyzing this market. One year after liberalization we conducted a stated-choice experiment among students and employees at the Technical University of Berlin, where participants had to choose between different interurban public transport alternatives (regional and intercity trains or interurban coaches). Additionally, the experiment gathered perception and attitudinal indicators used to construct latent variables. Our results show that attitudes and perceptions indeed affect the way individuals choose between different transport modes and, therefore, they must be taken into account when analyzing the interurban passenger market in Germany.

Urban compactness and the trade-off between air pollution emission and exposure: Lessons from a spatially explicit theoretical model

Air pollution is a major concern in urban areas worldwide. The interplay between urban structure and air pollution from an environmental, health and social perspective is the focus of our work: we model how urban structure impacts traffic-induced pollutant emissions and the exposure of residents to those pollutants.We present a chain of models applied to theoretical monocentric space: a residential choice model with endogenous open-space and road network, a commuting traffic generation and road assignment model and a pollutant emissions, dispersion and exposure model. The theoretical study approach decouples results from location specific characteristics and enables us to analyse how the preference of households for green amenities, a transport tax, the provision of public transport alternatives and local neighbourhood design impact the environment (total emissions) as well as residents’ health (population exposure) and utility.We emphasise that environmental strategies in the form of urban compaction have a strong impact on the exposure of households to pollutants, especially close to the centre, in addition to their reduction of welfare. Our results suggest that more beneficial policy outcomes can be obtained from strategies which preserve green spaces close to the centre or which intend a greater shift from car to public transport. Further, we find indication that different local designs of neighbourhoods have much stronger impacts on the exposure–emission tension than city-wide land use or transport options.

Graph-theoretic evaluation support tool for fixed-route transport development in metropolitan areas

This paper presents a graph-theoretic analysis for supporting the evaluation of alternative fixed-route public transport development plans in metropolitan areas. Several indicators grounded on the theory of graphs and network science are suggested and calculated for evaluating prospective developments of the fixed-route transport system in the Athens metropolitan area, which includes the metro, tram and suburban railway. The comparative static analyses of past and scheduled line extensions and planned line constructions generally show the tendency of the system towards small-world networking with scale-free characteristics, which implies increasing scale economies and reliance on a few large transfer stations. The results suggest that policy-makers can choose the option of constructing a semi-circumferential line in the middle (compared to the end) of the system development process, in order to trade investment cost for increased levels of service and robustness.

The life cycle assessment of alternative fuel chains for urban buses and trolleybuses

This paper describes a comparative analysis of public transport alternatives in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania. An LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) inventory analysis of fuel chains was undertaken using the midi urban bus and a similar type of trolleybus. The inventory analysis of fuel chains followed the guidelines provided by the ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards. The ReCiPe Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodology was used to quantify weighted damage originating from five alternative fuel chains. The compressed biogas fuel chain had the lowest weighted damage value, namely 45.7 mPt/km, whereas weighted damage values of the fuel chains based on electricity generation for trolleybuses were 60.6 mPt/km (for natural gas) and 78.9 mPt/km (for heavy fuel oil). The diesel and compressed natural gas fuel chains exhibited considerably higher damage values of 114.2 mPt/km and 132.6 mPt/km, respectively. The comparative life cycle assessment of fuel chains suggested that biogas-powered buses and electric trolleybuses can be considered as the best alternatives to use when modernizing the public transport fleet in Kaunas.

Sustainable mobility in Lyon: should we hang private car drivers?

Incriminated for negative externalities such as both local and global pollution, noise, sealing extension or public space high consumption, private cars have been perceived as a factor of un-sustainable mobility since the early 80’s by urban planners and designers. In the new paradigm of the so-called “sustainable city” urban planners and designers target now a modification of social behaviour and particularly social mobility practices. The production of transport alternatives and restrictions to automobiles in city centres through car-parking limitations and fare systems as developed in urban mobility plans (Plans de Deplacements Urbains) are unfortunately too weak to generate a modal shift ripple-effect in French cities. Considering the last issue of the French national institute of statistics and economic studies’ survey (Hubert, 2009) the modal-share in favour of car-transit remains the same for the period of time between 1994 and 2008 for the biggest French cities, in spite of steady efforts for the development of public transportation alternatives such as the diffusion of the tramway’s comeback (from Grenoble 1986, to Dijon 2013). According to a series of relatively recent research papers (Kaufmann, 2002 ; Lefevre & Offner, 1990) focused on the “economically irrational” behaviour of the majority of private-car drivers concerning the question of modal shift, a research framework has been developed. This frameworks specially focuses on the disconnect between the rationalities of resistant car-driver’s social mobility practices in the metropolitan space, compared to the rationale of urban mobility masterplans has, assuming that user’s “tactics” answer planner’s “strategies” (De Certeau, 1990). This approach of identifying this disconnect between rationalities in planning and rationalities in social practices in the urban mobility context is aimed to extend to the complex perception of urban environments by car-drivers, to identify new targets of modal-split policies to be structured as new action-levers. This perception will deal with several issues orchestrated through urban design projects such as public spaces, physical distances or parking constraints. The second main issue of this conceptual framework deals with rationalities of user’s mobility practices. The axiological rationality (Boudon, 1995) seems to be heuristic to question values and practices, searching for the rationale behind the conclusions that users draw when making mobility decisions (for example “the car is faster in my situation”). This justification process needs to be finely analyzed in combination with several concepts, norms and values that “make sense” for the individual. We propose the hypothesis that the combination of perception biases and axiological rationalities could helps to explain behaviors defined as “irrational” for urban mobility planners and to delineate the major levers of social acceptation and adoption of so-called sustainable urban environments.

Logistic Regression Models to Forecast Travelling Behaviour in Tripoli City

Transport modes are very important to Libyan’s Tripoli residents for their daily trips. However, the total number of own car and private transport namely taxi and micro buses on the road increases and causes many problems such as traffic congestion, accidents, air and noise pollution. These problems then causes other related phenomena to the travel activities such as delay in trips, stress and frustration to motorists which may affect their productivity and efficiency to both workers and students. Delay may also increase travel cost as well inefficiency in trips making if compare to other public transport users in some Arabs cities. Switching to public transport (PT) modes alternatives such as buses, light rail transit and underground train could improve travel time and travel costs. A transport study has been carried out at Tripoli City Authority areas among own car users who live in areas with inadequate of private transport and poor public transportation services. Analyses about relation between factors such as travel time, travel cost, trip purpose and parking cost have been made to answer research questions. Logistic regression technique has been used to analyse these factors that influence users to switch their trips mode to public transport alternatives.

Impact of increasing mass transit share on energy use and emissions from transport sector for National Capital Territory of Delhi

The growth of personalized vehicles on road and the declining public transport share in Delhi is creating mounting environmental problems. An efficient public transport system may promote a shift towards mass transit modes resulting in reduced emission and cleaner environment. This study examines the impact on energy use and the environment that may take place after the introduction of alternative public transport systems. In this context, two scenarios – increased bus-transit and metro rail – are compared with a business as usual scenario. The comparisons are made in terms of energy used and emissions based on 2005 and shows that a bus dominated transit system would result in 31% reduction in energy use, while for a metro rail dominated transit system it would be 61%.

Allocution du Président, 7 janvier 2010

Service quality is one of the most important factors that increase the use of public transportation, especially in metropolitan cities such as Istanbul. When evaluating service quality in public transportation systems, one of the most important factors is customer satisfaction. The increase in service quality increases the usage of public transport system utilization and it helps to solve many problems such as traffic congestion, air and noise pollution and energy consumption. For this purpose, the SERVQUAL model is extended with two new criteria related to Industry 4.0 and the pandemic to understand and evaluate the service quality of public transport systems. New criteria added into the SERVQUAL model and a novel P-SERVQUAL 4.0 (Pandemic SERVQUAL 4.0) model is presented. The novel service quality evaluation model is constructed as a three level hierarchical structure to evaluate public transport systems during the pandemic. Then, the evaluation model is modeled as a multi criteria decision making problem and a novel AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) integrated WASPAS (Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment) under interval valued intuitionistic fuzzy (IVIF) environment methodology is employed. A real case application to evaluate Istanbul public transport systems is presented in this study. The proposed novel model is applied to evaluate the most used public transportation alternatives such as IETT Bus, Metrobus, Tram, Metro and Marmaray, in Istanbul. By the application of P-SERVQUAL 4.0 model; as a result of this study, Marmaray is determined as the best alternative. The proposed methodology can be used by public or private organizations to improve their strategies and operations to adapt Industry 4.0 and prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Also, the main limitations and the practical and managerial implications of the study are included in the conclusions.

Young people's perceptions of traffic injury risks, prevention and enforcement measures: A qualitative study

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate young people's perceptions, in Barcelona, Spain, about the evolution, magnitude, causes and determinants of traffic crashes, to describe their opinions on road safety regulations, and to explore their suggestions and proposals. Interviews were conducted with 43 key informants and 12 focus groups involving 98 participants. Discussion guides were designed to get insight on perceptions of relevance and trends in road traffic injuries, determinants of these, regulations and enforcement, as well as to gather their own ideas for reducing traffic injuries. Young people are aware that traffic injuries are a relevant and increasingly serious problem. The main determinants identified are: driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, fatigue, night driving, unsafe infrastructures, age of drivers and lack of public transport alternatives. Young people admit that fines, speed cameras and alcohol breath testing reduce risky driving. They prefer community work to fines. They have a poor image of public administrations in charge of prevention of traffic injuries. They demand information on traffic regulations and politicians’ decisions, and a considerable increase in weekend and night time public transport. Effectiveness of interventions to reduce traffic injuries can be improved by taking the recipients’ perceptions into account.

Is there a ‘Stick’ Bonus? A Stated Choice Model for P&R Patronage incorporating Cross-Effects

This paper presents a universal logit model for P&R patronage. This model was estimated from a Stated Choice experiment, in which 805 car drivers chose among car, P&R and public transport alternatives. In addition to main-effects, attribute cross-effects were estimated denoting the utility change of an alternative due to changes in the attribute levels of another alternative. The results indicate that improving the levels of the P&R related attributes has a negligible effect on the utility of the car alternative, whereas worsening the levels of the carrelated attributes increases the utility of the P&R facility. Considering the estimated maineffects as well as the estimated cross-effects suggests that ‘stick’ (push) policy measures are more effective to stimulate P&R patronage than ‘carrot’ (pull) policy measures. The paper further reports that the extension of the model by adding cross-effects to the main-effects resulted in a better model fit and that the resulting model could more accurately predict the choices for new observations.

Generating Urban Lifestyle: The Case of Hong Kong New-Town Design and Local Travel Behaviour

The urban design of new towns embodies a movement and exchange system that has been consciously developed in relation to a set of expected human behaviours. In the history of new towns, these expectations have been variously fulfilled, but with rare investigations into the design causes. This study of Hong Kong new towns examines differences in travel behaviour between one early town and two later ones. While the general plans were quite similar and travel was expected to be the same in the towns, considerable differences were observed. Features of the town-centre design, details of the movement system and local environmental design all explain the differences in local behaviour. Differences in the size of the town, distance from the town centre and public transportation alternatives are all relatively unimportant in explaining the differences in local travel behaviour of residents. These findings point to the need for more empirical investigation into the effectiveness of urban design generally, and local environmental design in particular. Such findings could be highly useful in the continuing development of new and satellite towns in China.

Health Effects Caused by Primary Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) Emitted from Buses in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland

Fine particle (PM(2.5)) emissions from traffic have been associated with premature mortality. The current work compares PM(2.5)-induced mortality in alternative public bus transportation strategies as being considered by the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council, Finland. The current bus fleet and transportation volume is compared to four alternative hypothetical bus fleet strategies for the year 2020: (1) the current bus fleet for 2020 traffic volume, (2) modern diesel buses without particle traps, (3) diesel buses with particle traps, and (4) buses using natural gas engines. The average population PM(2.5) exposure level attributable to the bus emissions was determined for the 1996-1997 situation using PM(2.5) exposure measurements including elemental composition from the EXPOLIS-Helsinki study and similar element-based source apportionment of ambient PM(2.5) concentrations observed in the ULTRA study. Average population exposure to particles originating from the bus traffic in the year 2020 is assumed to be proportional to the bus emissions in each strategy. Associated mortality was calculated using dose-response relationships from two large cohort studies on PM(2.5) mortality from the United States. Estimated number of deaths per year (90% confidence intervals in parenthesis) associated with primary PM(2.5) emissions from buses in Helsinki Metropolitan Area in 2020 were 18 (0-55), 9 (0-27), 4 (0-14), and 3 (0-8) for the strategies 1-4, respectively. The relative differences in the associated mortalities for the alternative strategies are substantial, but the number of deaths in the lowest alternative, the gas buses, is only marginally lower than what would be achieved by diesel engines equipped with particle trap technology. The dose-response relationship and the emission factors were identified as the main sources of uncertainty in the model.

Transport user needs and marketing public transport

A better understanding of how public transport can be rendered more attractive to motorists is needed. This paper presents findings from recent studies of the psychological dimensions underlying respondent ratings of car and public transport use. Automobile users obtain autonomy as well as mobility from driving. There are two aspects to this autonomy—a sense of personal identity and a sense of independence—with feelings of control, confidence and safety a core component of both. Analysis of ratings of ten features of bus and rail services showed, for both modes, two underlying dimensions of judgement, service availability and service attractiveness. Analysis of 16 aspects of interchanging bus and rail journeys found separate factors representing psychological needs (saving effort), journey needs (saving time) and cost considerations (saving money). All journeys require expenditure of physical, cognitive and emotional effort. Current car commuters see a public transport alternative involving interchange as requiring unwelcome additional expenditure of physical and emotional resource. Analysis of bus and train traveller ratings of 16 journey demands found separate factors for in-trip anxieties, personal vulnerability concerns, in-trip and pre-trip information load. Focusing on these sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction should assist those marketing public transport alternatives to car use.

Combined Revealed and Stated Preference Nested Logit Access and Mode Choice Model for Multiple Mass Transit Technologies

A combined stated preference (SP) and revealed preference nested logit model of access and main mode choice was developed for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. The data used for model estimation include a conventional travel-activity survey and a customized, computerized SP survey. The model incorporates a generic mass transit alternative that represents any possible combination of existing and new technologies, such as heavy rail, enhanced bus, light rail, and suburban rail. The lower level of the nested logit model represents the access choice to the bus or mass transit alternatives, including walk, park and ride, kiss and ride, and bus access alternatives; the upper level represents the mode choice among bus, mass transit, car driver, and car passenger alternatives. Travel time reliability and seat availability are among the attributes of the public transportation alternatives.