Bus Passengers Research Articles

Motorcyclists have much higher exposure to black carbon compared to other commuters in traffic of Hanoi, Vietnam

Exposure to air pollutants, including black carbon (BC), during transportation is an important contribution to the total daily respiratory exposure for humans. Exposure to BC is especially relevant in crowded cities of developing countries. Specifically, in Hanoi (Vietnam), air pollution including BC is of concern, particularly near traffic. Despite public interest, no studies have been undertaken to understand the levels of respiratory exposure of BC to commuters in Hanoi, who predominantly use motorcyles. In this study, we simultaneously measured BC concentrations using microAeth AE51 portable devices on motorcycles, and in the cabins of cars and buses. The mean BC concentration on motorcycles was 29.4 μg/m3 compared to 10.1 μg/m3 in the buses. BC concentrations were also shown to be influenced by traffic density. Measurements during peak traffic showed BC concentrations of 34.7 μg/m3 and 12.1 μg/m3 for motorcyclists and bus passengers, respectively. For non-rush hour periods (on weekdays), the corresponding BC levels were 27.7 and 8.4 μg/m3, respectively. BC levels inside of a passenger car with different ventilation modes was also examined. The concentrations of BC inside the cabin of a passenger car were 18.1 μg/m3 and 11.7 μg/m3, with the windows open and closed, respectively. It is estimated that motorcyclists are exposed to a significantly higher level of BC than users of buses and cars. Our findings are evidence for promoting the use of public transportation to protect public health in Hanoi, which may also be applicable to other cities in South-East Asia with similar traffic characteristics.

Kajian Tarif Angkutan Umum Bus Damri Rute BIL – Kota Matram Berdasarkan Biaya Operasional Kendaraan

The increasing amount of people traveling in the city of Mataram causes the demand for satisfactory public transportation both in terms of quantity and quality. Damri Bus is one of the transportation that provides passenger public transportation services with one of the routes, specifically Lombok International Airport (LIA) - Mataram. The purpose of this research is to find out how much the Damri Bus passenger transportation rates are based on vehicle operating costs (VOC) route BIL - Mataram. The method used to analyze passenger transportation rates based on VOC is using the PCI (Pacific International Consultant) method. Based on the results of the analysis, it is known that the Damri Bus VOC is Rp 2,788,439, while the results of the data analysis based on the VOC obtained average rates in the Morning is Rp15,015, in the Noon is Rp 13,223 and in the Afternoon is Rp 42,262, with an average tariff is Rp 23,499 , 89. The actual tariff of Damri Bus routes BIL - Mataram is Rp. 30,000, the results show that the results of the tariff analysis with the actual tariff are still appropriate.

Lateral-Acceleration-Based Vehicle-Models-Blending for Automated Driving Controllers

Model-based trajectory tracking has become a widely used technique for automated driving system applications. A critical design decision is the proper selection of a vehicle model that achieves the best trade-off between real-time capability and robustness. Blending different types of vehicle models is a recent practice to increase the operating range of model-based trajectory tracking control applications. However, current approaches focus on the use of longitudinal speed as the blending parameter, with a formal procedure to tune and select its parameters still lacking. This work presents a novel approach based on lateral accelerations, along with a formal procedure and criteria to tune and select blending parameters, for its use on model-based predictive controllers for autonomous driving. An electric passenger bus traveling at different speeds over urban routes is proposed as a case study. Results demonstrate that the lateral acceleration, which is proportional to the lateral forces that differentiate kinematic and dynamic models, is a more appropriate model-switching enabler than the currently used longitudinal velocity. Moreover, the advanced procedure to define blending parameters is shown to be effective. Finally, a smooth blending method offers better tracking results versus sudden model switching ones and non-blending techniques.

Study on saving energy for electric auxiliary systems of electric bus

ABSTRACT Since Electric Auxiliary Systems (EAS) accounts for a large proportion of electric bus energy consumption, in order to reduce EAS energy consumption and improve bus driving range, the working principles of EAS have been studied. The number of passengers, bus interior and exterior temperature can have great influence on EAS energy consumption, it is important to dynamically manage EAS working status according to the changes of bus driving conditions for saving energy, then an integrated control method for EAS is proposed for better meeting the real demands of EAS. The proposed method takes EAS as a whole and can manage EAS working status mainly according to the changes of bus passengers. For verifying the effectiveness of the proposed method, an electric bus model including EAS has been built and simulated by co-simulation in different platforms. Compared with common control method, the experimental simulation results shows that EAS energy consumption can be effectively reduced by dynamically managing EAS working status according to the changes of bus driving conditions, energy consumption proportion of each subsystem in EAS also has been discussed. The proposed method gives new way for saving EAS energy and has great application value for electric buses.

Wear Evaluation of Niobium-Added Cast Iron for Brake Disc and Drum Applications

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Grey cast iron alloys for brake drum and brake disc applications are being developed with niobium additions and a range of equivalent carbon for commercial, passenger vehicle, and performance applications. The benefit of niobium in cast iron is based on the contribution of strength by matrix refinement for a given carbon equivalence that may permit the direct improvement of wear improvement or allow for an increase in carbon equivalence for a given strength. Proper carbon equivalency and pearlite stabilization contribute to an improved pearlite structure with an optimized distribution of graphite. These structures, when refined with niobium, demonstrate increased service life and reduced wear relative to their niobium-free equivalents as measured by lab dynamometer testing and by on-vehicle testing in passenger bus fleets. The increase in performance is attributed to both the presence of wear resistant carbides and refinement of pearlite interlamellar spacing with only minor refinement of graphite flake length.</div></div>

Upper body balancing mechanisms and their contribution to increasing bus passenger safety

Whilst buses can improve societal well-being, they can also contribute to increasing car ownership due to their abrupt movements. High acceleration can be responsible for passenger injuries that require hospitalisation and for the development of fear of falling in the elderly, which turn people away from buses. Hence, to promote buses as a form of active transportation, passenger safety needs to be considered in public transport planning.The walking pattern and grip force behaviour of 29 healthy and regular bus users, between 20 and 80 years, was studied with the aim to increase passenger safety aboard buses. Lower body balancing mechanisms were previously published. This work reports on the balancing mechanisms the same participants developed to engage their upper body when subjected to the same acceleration levels (stationary: 0 m/s2; low: 1.0 m/s2; medium: 1.5 m/s2; high: 2.5 m/s2), and whilst performing level and stair walking tasks. Their natural grip force and weight was also considered.ANOVA tests on the collected peak grip forces and grip durations revealed that age, gender, task and acceleration are significant factors in the development of upper body balancing mechanisms. Peak grip force and duration intensify, and become less variable, as acceleration increases, especially during stair ascending. Middle-aged males present higher instability compared to other passengers, as they apply higher grip forces and sustain their grip for longer durations. As the upper and lower body work in synergy to sustain balance, conclusions on an overall acceleration level are being drawn to increase bus passenger safety.

A Discursive Analysis of Begging Discourse by the Visually Impaired in Zimbabwe

The article seeks to explore the societal perceptions and interpretations of the discourse used by the visually impaired people when begging in Zimbabwe. The paper analyses the expression of words in speech and songs during the begging process. The study emerges out of the realisation that there is a high rate of people with visual impairment begging in streets and buses. These people use spoken discourse through singing and chanting when begging from the society. Despite the economic hardships in Zimbabwe, the visually impaired are always begging and highly active on a daily basis. It is against this realisation that the article focuses on how this discourse is perceived and interpreted by different people in Zimbabwean societies. The paper provides a socio linguistic analysis of the language used during begging by the visually impaired. The main focus is on the societal perceptions and interpretations of the discourse used by the visually impaired people when begging. The article uses a qualitative research methodology with purposive sampling technique employed to gather data from the passengers in buses, the visually impaired and their guides and from bus drivers and conductors. Random selection of some people was also done to get their perceptions and interpretations on the discourse by the visually impaired people in the streets. Guided by the critical discourse analysis theory, the paper argues that the discourse used by the visually impaired is largely ‘politicised’ so as to appeal to people’s minds and get the assistance they need.

Detecting Anomalous Bus-Driving Behaviors from Trajectories

In urban transit systems, discovering anomalous bus-driving behaviors in time is an important technique for monitoring the safety risk of public transportation and improving the satisfaction of passengers. This paper proposes a two-phase approach named Cygnus to detect anomalous driving behaviors from bus trajectories, which utilizes collected sensor data of smart phones as well as subjective assessments from bus passengers by crowd sensing. By optimizing support vector machines, Cygnus discovers the anomalous bus trajectory candidates in the first phase, and distinguishes real anomalies from the candidates, as well as identifies the types of driving anomalies in the second phase. To improve the anomaly detection performance and robustness, Cygnus introduces virtual labels of trajectories and proposes a correntropy-based policy to improve the robustness to noise, combines the unsupervised anomaly detection and supervised classification, and further refines the classification procedure, thus forming an integrated and practical solution. Extensive experiments are conducted on real-world bus trajectories. The experimental results demonstrate that Cygnus detects anomalous bus-driving behaviors in an effective, robust, and timely manner.

A Data-Driven Timetable Optimization of Urban Bus Line Based on Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm

Reasonable bus timetable can reduce the operating costs of bus company and improve the quality of bus services. A data-driven method is proposed to optimize bus timetable in this study. Firstly, a bi-objective optimization model is constructed considering minimize the total waiting time of passengers and the departure times of bus company. Then, Global Positioning System (GPS) trajectories of buses and passenger information collected from Smart Card are fused and applied to calculate the key parameters or variables in optimization model, including time-dependent travel time, bus dwell time and passenger volume. Finally, by adopting a specific coding scheme, an improved Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) is designed to quickly search Pareto optimal solutions. Furthermore, an experiment is conducted in Beijing city from one bus line to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Comparing with empirical scheduling method and traditional single-objective optimization base on GA, the results show that the proposed model could quickly provide high-quality and reasonable timetable schemes for the administrator in urban transit system.

Are casualties from mass-casualty Motor Vehicle Crashes different from casualties of other Motor Vehicle Crashes?

IntroductionMass Casualty Incidents (MCI) by Motor Vehicle Crashes (MVCs) are most common type of MCIs. Casualties from MCIs usually require more hospitalization resources. The purpose of this study was to compare the injury characteristics, survivability, and medical resource utilization of casualties from Mass-Casualty Motor Vehicle Crashes (MC-MVCs) and casualties from other (non MCI) MVCs. MethodsThis retrospective cohort study examined a population of 50,321 Israeli casualties hospitalized due to MVCs between 1998 and 2017, of which 595 (1.2%) were admitted from a MC-MVC. Analysis included type of motor vehicle involved and collision circumstances, injury characteristics, hospital resource utilization, and demographics. ResultsThe results suggest that most casualties from MC-MVCs were bus passengers who were injured when the vehicle rolled over. Injuries from MC-MVCs were more urgent as almost two times more MC-MVCs casualties were rushed directly from the emergency room into the operating rooms and intensive care units than casualties of regular MVCs. Mortality rate was higher in MC-MVCs compared to regular MVCs (2.69% compared to 1.46%, respectively; p = .013). Severe injuries (ISS≥16) were more frequent in MC-MVCs (23.40% versus 15.53%, p < .0001). Casualties from MC-MVCs required more hospitalization resources, including ICU admission, surgery, and extended lengths of stay. The multivariate analysis demonstrated that mass casualty conditions are predictive of severe injuries even when controlling for age, gender, and collision circumstances. ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that hospitals receiving casualties from MC-MVCs should expect not only a multitude of casualties, rather also the need to treat more urgent and severe injuries, in more body regions per casualty, and expect higher admissions rates to intensive care units and operation rooms under MCI conditions.

Destination Estimation for Bus Passengers Based on Data Fusion

The planning and operation of urban buses depend heavily on the time-varying origin-destination (OD) matrix for bus passengers. In most cities, however, only boarding information is recorded, while the alighting information is not available. This paper proposes a novel method to predict the destination of a single bus passenger based on bus smartcard data, metro smartcard data, and global positioning system (GPS) bus data. First, the attractiveness of each bus stop in a bus line was evaluated, considering the attractiveness of nearby metro stations. Then, the exploration and preferential return (EPR) model was employed to estimate the probability of a bus stop to be the alighting stop, i.e., the destination, of a passenger. The estimation result was obtained through a simulation based on the Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm. The effectiveness of our method was proved through a case study on the bus network in Shenzhen, China.

Developing artificial neural networks to estimate real-time onboard bus ride comfort

The ride comfort of bus passengers is a critical factor that is recognised to attract greater ridership towards a sustainable public transport system. However, it is challenging to estimate bus passenger comfort onboard while travelling due to the complex non-linear interaction among various factors. A practicable method to collect real-time comfort ratings by passengers is also not readily available. This study developed an artificial neural network (ANN) model with three layers to precisely estimate real-time ride comfort of bus passengers. The inputs are vehicle-related parameters (speed, acceleration and jerk), passenger-related features (posture, location, facing, gender, age, weight and height), ride comfort index in ISO 2631-1997 (vibration dose value and maximum transient vibration value), and output is passenger rating (collected from a specialised mobile application). The ANN model provided a satisfactory performance and good correlation between inputs and output with an average MSE = 0.03 and R-value = 0.83, respectively. Sensitivity analysis was also conducted to quantify the relative contribution of each variable in the ANN model, revealing similar contributions among all influencing factors in the range of 4–6%. On average, passenger-related factors contribute slightly higher than vehicle-related factors to the ride comfort estimation based on the connection weight approach. The development of ANN model which can precisely estimate bus ride comfort is important as a considerable amount of machine learning and artificial intelligence are utilised to guide autonomous bus (AB). The present findings can help AB designers and engineers in improving AB technology to achieve a higher level of passengers’ onboard comfort.

Student satisfaction with the performance of Surabaya school buses

School transportation facilities in the city of Surabaya are increasingly being upgraded to serve the needs of education. In 2019, there have been 7 School Bus units operating in several points in South, East, North and West Surabaya. The addition of this mode is intended to fulfill and facilitate the journey of the citizens of Surabaya to school; in addition, to reduce the number of students using private vehicles to school. However, to find out the interests of school bus users, it is necessary to know the performance of school bus services and passenger satisfaction. This study aims to measure the performance and service of school buses, as well as the level of student satisfaction. Data collection in this study uses several methods, namely questionnaire survey, observations and interviews. The data were analyzed using two methods, namely descriptive analysis with standard public service calculations and the Importance Performance Analysis method. Based on the results of the analysis, the performance of the Surabaya School Bus was categorized as “Good”. At the level of satisfaction, there are 5 attributes considered important, 7 attributes have good performance, 1 attribute is not prioritized, and 3 attributes have good performance but are not considered important.

Assessing the safety of express bus from passengers’ perspective

This paper presents an analysis of express bus passengers’ perspective towards the safety and causes of express bus accidents. Express bus is an important mode of transport as it is cheap and has high connectivity between cities. However, the safety of express bus is a major concern in Malaysia. There have been many high-profile express bus accidents that have caused deaths to innocent victims. Therefore, it is important to study the safety of express bus and increase its safety. A survey with 880 respondents was conducted in Malaysia to study passengers’ perspective on the safety of express buses. The questionnaire is divided into seven sections: respondent background and demography, service, comfort, safety, information technology and safety education. The results are presented in a spider web diagram and shows the 12 most important factors that relate to express bus safety. In conclusion, this study helps to understand the perspective of express bus passengers on the safety of express bus and determine the important factors related to express bus safety and reduce the number of express bus accidents in Malaysia.

Online Web query system for various frequency distributions of bus passengers in Taichung city of Taiwan

It is highly desirable that traffic controllers or city residents can discern regular patterns and promptly detect irregularities or abnormal events in a public transportation system. This study proposes a web-based information system that allows users to study the travel behaviour of bus passengers from various perspectives. The system uses data from the comprehensive set of Taichung City Bus Riding Records between 2015 and 2016. However, it can provide the same functionality to any other similar bus transportation system by using the appropriate data. It should be emphasised that the system can provide the frequency distributions not only of passenger trips between two stops but also of the passenger volume for a given segment of any route. Owing to the increased computational and storage-capacity requirements of the proposed system, the scalable Hadoop MapReduce programming model was used. Furthermore, bus companies can use the system to design better service plans, such as more flexible bus schedules and more convenient routes, to meet passenger demand as well as reduce operation cost and energy consumption. The authors believe that the proposed system can make a valuable contribution to public welfare.

How do subways affect urban passenger transport modes?—Evidence from China

This paper examines how the opening of a subway affects urban passenger transport modes. The DID method is applied to a dataset of 43 Chinese cities where subway development plans were approved between 1994 and 2015. This paper finds strong evidence that subways affect people's choice of travel modes. Specifically, every new subway line put into operation annually diverts about 4.1 percent of bus passengers, which is equivalent to saving at least 10 bus lines. Furthermore, subways supplement the existing bus systems, but do not have a crowding-out effect on the number of buses or the length of bus lines. The opening of subways reduces the number of taxis and cars on the road.

Language Choice Among Commuter Bus Conductors (Drivers' Mates) and Passengers at Kumasi Kejetia Bus Terminal, Ghana

This research aims to examine the language used by the commuter bus conductors and passengers moving to and from Kejetia bus terminal in the Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana. This research basically focuses on sociolinguistics approach. The source of the data is purely the utterances of the bus conductors and the passengers on board in the commuter buses. Observation and recording were used as the data collection instruments in the study. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the data gathered. The study found Asante Twi dialect as the most dominant language choice of the majority of the sampled population (passengers and drivers' mates). The use of unmarked code switching in conversational discourse was not uncommon among participants. Finally, the study found English language to be the second most dominant language choice in the participants' verbal discourse. The implication is that apart from Akan language, all the other seven languages stand the risk of experiencing language shift leading to eventual language death should the ethnic groups concerned fail to maintain their languages.

Incorporating Phase Rotation Into a Person-Based Signal Timing Optimization Algorithm

This article proposes a person-based traffic signal optimization algorithm that simultaneously optimizes signal phase sequence, cycle length, and green split to minimize total person delay at an intersection. It builds upon previous person-based work that uses a mathematical program to optimize signal timings based on real-time passenger car flows and knowledge of bus arrivals and passenger occupancies. Phase rotation is directly accommodated within the mathematical program by introducing new binary variables to describe the phase sequence. The program can either be solved directly or through an enumeration approach to reduce computational complexity. The proposed method is tested using numerical simulations of an intersection in Athens, Greece. The results reveal that phase rotation can reduce person delay significantly, especially when the intersection flow ratio is relatively low. These reductions in person delays are achieved by implicitly prioritizing the movement of high-occupancy buses to the detriment of lower-occupancy cars. Furthermore, to balance the person delay reduction and phase rotation frequency, a threshold can be applied in the phase sequence selection process to eliminate phase rotations actions with limited benefits.

Wildlife-vehicle collisions in Hurungwe Safari Area, northern Zimbabwe

This study is the first to assess wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) in Zimbabwe. The study analysed the impact and factors that influence vehicle collisions with large wild mammals along the Harare-Chirundu road section in the protected Hurungwe Safari Area, northern Zimbabwe. Data were retrieved from the Hurungwe Safari Area records and covered the period between 2006 and 2013. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the recorded variables across the sampled area and to show trends of the prevalence of large wild mammals roadkill over time. Using STATISTICA version 10 for Windows, a two-tailed Mann-Whitney U test was used to determine differences between the number of wild mammal animal roadkills and seasons. A total of 47 large wild mammal animals were killed between 2006 and 2013. The large wild mammal animals that died as a result of vehicle collisions constituted a total of 11 species, with the African buffalo and spotted hyena being the most hit and killed animal species. Most WVC involved heavy haulage trucks and passenger buses. There was no significance difference (P = 0.936) between number of large wild mammal animals killed from WVC between dry and wet seasons. The large wild mammal animals were mostly killed in areas near water sources. We recommend for the inclusion of wildlife protection safeguards in road infrastructure network design and development, particularly on roads that traverse across protected areas in Zimbabwe and beyond.

An agent-based model for real-time bus stop-skipping and holding schemes

This paper develops a real-time agent-based simulation model to optimize the dynamic bus stop-skipping and holding schemes. The proposed agent-based simulation model is capable of modeling, scheduling and solving control strategy problems in real-time complex, dynamic and stochastic scenarios of the transport systems. To this end, random bus travel times and passenger arrivals are incorporated in the agent-based model to evaluate the integrated bus operation strategies. Apart from the total costs, the performance of the proposed strategies is evaluated with respect to the buses’ headway deviation and reliability index, the passengers’ travel time and the overall system cost, respectively. The results show the benefits of different strategies under different scenarios. The RTSSH (real-time stop-skipping and holding) strategy performs the best when buses are not reused, whilst RTSS (real-time stop-skipping) outperforms RTSSH strategy when buses are allowed to be reused.