Public Transport Demand Research Articles

Spatial gaps in urban public transport supply and demand from the perspective of sustainability

Abstract Revitalizing the role of public transport systems has the potential benefit of creating sustainable urban mobility and enhancing social inclusion. However, an imbalanced distribution of public transport services across a population may result in adverse effects for some social groups. One of these, the senior population, is seeing rapid growth, giving rise to increasing concerns. In this context, this paper develops a systematic methodology, supported by Geographic Information Systems (GIS), to identify the relative spatial gaps in public transport supply and demand from seniors, such as census tracts (CTs), traffic analysis zones (TAZs), or neighborhoods, considering sustainability at the statistical area (SA) level. A case study of Edmonton, Canada is described to demonstrate the novelty and practical capabilities of this methodology. The presented results indicate that the concentration degree of transport services varies among all CTs and reflects diversity in terms of various transport supply indicators, but the Gini coefficients of the seniors are all found to be relatively small. Distribution of the public transport supply index (PTSI) and the public transport demand index (PTDI) are found to be diverse among all CTs in terms of geographical locations and the number of CTs in different categories. It is also found that Edmonton features some easily distinguishable over-serviced and under-serviced areas, as well some CTs with balanced service—usually in suburban locations far from the city's core. The findings provide policy makers with evidence to validate a quantitative method for evaluating the relative spatial gaps in public transport services for individual CTs in order to promote greater equality of transport opportunities and increase of transport service efficiency among socially disadvantaged groups.

Development of Urban Transportation System Based on Bus Rapid Transit

Urban transport systems in Indonesia have been influenced by kinds of traffic problems such as congestion, high accident rates and traffic violations and uncomfortable, safe, and orderly levels of public transport services. To develop urban transportation systems, a policy implementation is needed in public transportation such as special lanes for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as one of the alternative solutions to give better services for the public transport user. The purpose of this study is to count the demand of bus rapid transit, determine the number of corridors and halt for the BRT as well as know the types of BRT which should be operated in Kendari City in accordance with the needs of public transport users. The method used in this study is the quantitative method by collecting primary and secondary data which includes OD Matrix of a destination of the population travel, Number of Passengers up and down on each route, Load factor in each route, Travel time and Road Inventory Data. Other data include Road length, Road width, Road type, the width of trotoar, width of the median, and Road Pavement type. The results of this research are that the number of demand for public transportation in Kendari City are 28 buses with 8 units in the first corridor, 6 units in the second corridor, 8 units in the third corridor, and 6 units in the fourth corridor. Indeed, the total number of corridors needed to operate of BRT in Kendari requires 174 shelters. The potential population in Kendari City is categorized on the modest development and the existing conditions of the road, which is not too large for the BRT line planned. Therefore, the possibility of increasing the number of passengers then the type of bus which may be used as a fleet of BRT at the beginning of the operation is large floor buses total capacity of 79 people consisting of 49 seated passengers and 30 passengers standing.

Machine Learning Forecasts of Public Transport Demand: A Comparative Analysis of Supervised Algorithms Using Smart Card Data

Public transport smart cards are widely used around the world. However, while they provide information about various aspects of passenger behavior, they have not been properly exploited to predict demand. Indeed, traditional methods in economics employ linear unbiased estimators that pay little attention to accuracy, which is the main problem faced by the sector’s regulators. This paper reports the application of various supervised machine learning (SML) techniques to smart card data in order to forecast demand, and it compares these outcomes with traditional linear model estimates. We conclude that the forecasts obtained from these algorithms are much more accurate.

Analysing proximity to public transport: the role of street network design

<p>La proximidad de los hogares y el empleo a las redes de transporte público es un factor clave en el uso final de las mismas. Una de las estrategias más frecuentes para aumentar la proximidad al transporte público es densificar el entorno de las estaciones. Sin embargo, también se pueden generar proximidad en los nuevos desarrollos mediante el diseño de la trama urbana. En este artículo se analiza el impacto del diseño de la trama urbana en la cobertura de la redes de transporte público y en su demanda potencial mediante la comparación de la situación real de la red de Metro de Madrid con cuatro escenarios hipotéticos, que representan diferentes tipos de red viaria: una red irregular de alta densidad; irregular de baja densidad, ortogonal y un viario orientado a la estación. Para ver el efecto de la trama urbana, se mantienen las distribuciones de la población y el empleo constante, de manera que las diferencias entre el escenario real y cada uno de los hipotéticos se explican únicamente por el papel desempeñado por el diseño de la trama urbano. Para medir la magnitud del impacto del diseño de la trama urbana en la proximidad al transporte público se han calculado una serie de indicadores: la superficie de las áreas de cobertura, la población y el empleo cubiertos de acuerdo a las franjas de distancia, la calidad de acceso y la demanda potencial. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que una trama viaria orientada a la estación daría lugar a un aumento sustancial de la población y el empleo en las primeras franjas de distancia, lo que genera un aumento significativo en la demanda potencial del transporte público.</p>

Optimization of Urban Public Transportation System in Vijayawada - A Case Study

The recent scenario of Public transportation in most of the Indian cities shows only 20% to 30% of the total passengers utilizing any public transit as their mode of travel. Rapid growth in vehicles population has put enormous strains in all urban roads in Vijayawada, due to high vehicle ownership and poor supporting public transport facilities specially in the cities where the population is between 1 to 2 million. With more private vehicles on roads, pollution as well as congestion levels in the cities are also expected to increase. The major factor is very low ridership in public transport due to poor service quality and more travelling time. Hence there is a need to make the public transit a favorable mode of transport for the passengers. This study is concerned of assessment of public transport demand for Vijayawada and identifies the major factors for poor ridership with estimation of the probable shift of personal vehicle users to bus due to the increase in its level of service also identifies ways to account qualitative factors in the public transport project evaluation by adjusting travel time values to reflect comfort and convenience.

Individual Travel Behavior Modeling of Public Transport Passenger Based on Graph Construction

This paper presents a novel method for mining the individual travel behavior regularity of different public transport passengers through constructing travel behavior graph based model. The individual travel behavior graph is developed to represent spatial positions, time distributions, and travel routes and further forecasts the public transport passenger’s behavior choice. The proposed travel behavior graph is composed of macronodes, arcs, and transfer probability. Each macronode corresponds to a travel association map and represents a travel behavior. A travel association map also contains its own nodes. The nodes of a travel association map are created when the processed travel chain data shows significant change. Thus, each node of three layers represents a significant change of spatial travel positions, travel time, and routes, respectively. Since a travel association map represents a travel behavior, the graph can be considered a sequence of travel behaviors. Through integrating travel association map and calculating the probabilities of the arcs, it is possible to construct a unique travel behavior graph for each passenger. The data used in this study are multimode data matched by certain rules based on the data of public transport smart card transactions and network features. The case study results show that graph based method to model the individual travel behavior of public transport passengers is effective and feasible. Travel behavior graphs support customized public transport travel characteristics analysis and demand prediction.

Life Cycle of Public Transportation Companies of DR Congo <br/>—A Diachronic and Synchronic Analysis

In most of developing countries, the public transportation remains the challenges for most of the population. This inherent situation is observed in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where the demand of public transportation exceeds the supply. It has been found that public transportation companies are created, but they eventually fall into bankruptcy. The causes can be of course diverse. The objective of this study is to trace and describe the life cycles of these transportation companies of DR Congo in the diachronic and synchronic perspective. Using the documentary analysis of secondary data and interviews, the findings provide a description of the life cycles of the DRC transportation companies according to their cycle duration, types and steps in the diachronic and synchronic perspective.

Research on performance evaluation method of Public Transit Routes based on BCC model

The fast development of urbanization and development have led to an increase in the difficulties with regards to satisfying the demand of public transport. The quantized evaluation analysis of urban public transport performance is useful to identify its shortcomings and to also enable further optimization of the transport system. This facilitates the improvement of the systems quality of service and provides the means to reduce operating costs. Furthermore, the quantification of the bus lines performance evaluation is crucial in raising the systems operational efficiency and improving the operators level of service. In this study, the data collected from Hangzhou Bus Companys operating income table is evaluated to assess bus performance by Excel and Deap software. The study constructs the conceptual framework that evaluates the performance evaluation of the single bus line, and divides the implementation process of the single bus line service into two stages. Building the Output-BCC (Banker Charnes Cooper) model with DEA method to calculate the operational efficiency and service efficiency, then accesses the Hangzhou bus transport objectively and provides some suggestions.

Sustainable transport development and passenger transport demand in Poland

Development of sustainable transportation is a process which involves promoting efficient transport systems meeting social expectations, while reducing any sub-optimal or harmful effects on public health, natural environment, economy and urban planning. Therefore, in the case of passenger transport, the most effective measure to achieve sustainable transport development is to maximize the share of public transport. This paper analyses trends in changes of demand for passenger transport in European Union Member States, in Poland and in Kujawsko-Pomorskie province, including in urban and non-urban areas. Based on collected data and extensive transport-related research of the authors, including surveys of residents, the most important conditions have been defined which affect passenger transport demand in Kujawsko-Pomorskie province, and a forecast has been attempted of the demand in three different scenarios of economic development (optimistic, stable and regressive) for various years. The projected public transport demand has been established on the basis of simulations using a proprietary transport model. Results of these calculations revealed surprising conclusions which indicate unfavourable trends in changes of the analysed demand and insignificant differences in projected transport needs, regardless of the selected economic development option for the country and the province.

Multi-agent urban transport simulations using OD matrices from mobile phone data

Although new available big data sources have revealed themselves to be extraordinarily useful for transport demand modelling, they have not come into widespread use due to the justifiable privacy concerns of data stewards. In this study, we step back and re-evaluate the way in which mobile phone telco data can be introduced for the task of transport and land-use policy evaluation, travel demand forecasting and transport infrastructure testing through large-scale transportation simulations. We investigated that question by deploying a multi-agent transport simulation driven primarily by hourly-aggregated telco Origin-Destination (OD) matrices. We address the principal four challenges: spatial and temporal disaggregation, mode imputation and route choice. For temporal disaggregation, we propose a convolution with an exponential kernel method. As for transport mode imputation, a supervised-learning framework is designed. The simulation results are compared against traffic count data and public transport smart card transactions, showing accurate patterns for private cars but overestimated public transport demand in the morning peak. Lastly, we set the future steps for the improvement of simulations driven by aggregated mobile phone data.

Coupling Coordination Measurement between Information Attention and Service Level of Urban Public Transport

The concept of urban public transport information attention was defined to determine travel information demand and spatiotemporal differentiation of urban public transport. On the basis of the Baidu index of urban public transport attention in 31 cities in China from 2011 to 2014, this study applied the standard deviation and the Theil index to analyze absolute and relative differences in urban public transport information attention. Then, the coupling coordination degree model was established to measure the coordination of information attention and service level of urban public transport. Results showed that the relative difference gradually diverged, whereas the absolute difference increased from 2011 to 2014. The regional rank changes of urban public transport information attention gradually diminished from east to west, the spatial coupling coordination between information attention and service level of urban public transport was low, and the differences between regions were significant.

Research on Demand for Bus Transport and Transport Habits of High School Students in Žilina Region

Abstract The paper deals with the analysis of demand for bus transport to examine determinants of demand and practices of high school students based on survey of their transport habits in Žilina Region. Transport habits of students are individual and variable in time. This group of passengers is dependent on public passenger transport services because of their travelling to schools. Significant part of demand for public passenger transport is also formed by this this group of passengers. The knowledge of student's transport habits may help in process of adaptation of offering and quality of transport serviceability what may subsequently stabilize demand for public passenger transport.

How Important is the Integration of Public Passenger Transport

AbstractThe significance of the issue of an effective mode of passenger transport is currently increasing. On the one hand, there is the increasing economic demand of public passenger transport, on the other hand, there is the growing traffic share of individual automobile transport. The objective of the paper is to analyze public passenger transport without mutual integration of individual transport systems resulting in the fact that it is not sufficiently able to compete with individual automobile transport. It is proposed the integration of different modes of public passenger transport as a way to increase the competitiveness of public passenger transport. Aim of this paper is to analyze the individual elements of integration systems and describe why integration of public passenger transport systems is needed.

The Dynamic Analysis of Actual Travel Demand for Local Public Transport Based on Data Envelopment Analysis

The Dynamic Analysis of Actual Travel Demand for Local Public Transport Based on Data Envelopment Analysis

Development of «Park-and-Ride» system as a tool for sustainable access control managing

Large cities, whereby people use private transport, are facing the same challenges related to traffic congestion, reliability of public transportation and parking demand. Managing urban traffic and transport has become the most relevant police in transport planning. The article deals with the potential for further implementation in Russian Federation of «Park-and- Ride» recognized as an essential part of the overall transport and parking offer and successful planning tool to reducing congestion for any urban area around the world. The studies have been carried out in Moscow acknowledged as the city core of Moscow agglomeration — the largest and most populous in Russia. The research aims to support for the development of «Park-and-Ride» system applying the methodical approach adapted by the authors for the study to make it relevant for cities. A three-steps access control is offered to reduce private cars use in the city center. The results of the studies shows that such traffic management tool can help successfully in balancing the traffic demand and supply and, consequently, in resolving transport congestion and the number of coherent social, urban and economic challenges addressed to the sustainable development of urban areas.

Impacts of the economic crisis on household transport expenditure and public transport policy: Evidence from the Spanish case

The objective of this paper is to assess the impacts of the economic crisis in Spain on the transport expenditure of households from 2006 to 2014 and how transport authorities reacted to cope with the decreasing public resources and transport demand. The approach is based on quantitative and qualitative sources of information: the Spanish Household Budget Survey and in-depth interviews with public transport policy makers from six metropolitan areas.Transport is one of the household expenditure items that is the most affected by the crisis. The average amount spent on transport fell to its lowest value in 2013, dropping by 37% in six years. The proportion of budget spent on transport was reduced by a majority of households, whatever the residential location or purchasing power, with the exception of the poorest. Households reacted promptly to the crisis by reducing their purchases of new cars; their spending on transport use was affected less significantly. Poor households or those living in low-density areas were least able to reduce their transport costs.To cope with the crisis, public transport authorities reduced transport supply and increased fares. They also implemented other measures to bring in extra income which had no impact on transport services. The research concludes that sustainability-oriented transport policies promoting public transport and the reduction of car dependency, together with sustainable land-use policies, may help to limit the household transport budget and the impacts of an economic crisis on mobility.

Enhancing Bengaluru’s public transport network: approaches and challenges

In recent decades, Bengaluru as a metropolis has witnessed explosive growth – both in terms of population, which has doubled since 2001, and growth in vehicles, which have more than quadrupled in the same period (RTO 2016). This has significantly stressed the city’s road infrastructure, leading to congestion and increases in pollution. Economic losses due to congestion for two of the city’s Information Technology corridors alone are estimated at INR227.7 billion annually (Bharadwaj 2015), without taking into account the health costs of increased emissions due to a surge in the number of vehicles plying in the city. ‘Conventional’ solutions addressing congestion within the city — such as road widening, creating one ways and building grade separators such as flyovers and underpasses — have failed to address the issue, and at the current rate of increasing vehicular volumes, the city’s roads are forecast to be completely saturated by 2025.This paper’s premise is that public transport serves as the sole sustainable solution to Bengaluru’s chronic congestion; only a large mode-shift towards public transport by 2025 can help reduce congestion on the city’s roads. The paper advocates the Avoid-Shift-Improve strategy to achieve this, focusing on transport-specific improvements required to incentivise commuters to shift to public transport and identifies institutional and financial changes in the way of enhancing public transport in the city. The paper also forewarns against neglecting the city’s conventional bus system in favour of other, capital-intensive modes of mass-transit, forecasting that buses will continue to meet over 75% of the city’s public transport demand even after the completion of Phase I and II of the city’s metro and the introduction of a functional commuter rail system.

Obesity-related health impacts of fuel excise taxation- an evidence review and cost-effectiveness study

BackgroundReducing automobile dependence and improving rates of active transport may reduce the impact of obesogenic environments, thereby decreasing population prevalence of obesity and other diseases where physical inactivity is a risk factor. Increasing the relative cost of driving by an increase in fuel taxation may therefore be a promising public health intervention for obesity prevention.MethodsA scoping review of the evidence for obesity or physical activity effect of changes in fuel price or taxation was undertaken. Potential health benefits of an increase in fuel excise taxation in Australia were quantified using Markov modelling to simulate obesity, injury and physical activity related health impacts of a fuel excise taxation intervention for the 2010 Australian population. Health adjusted life years (HALYs) gained and healthcare cost savings from diseases averted were estimated. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were reported and results were tested through sensitivity analysis.ResultsLimited evidence on the effect of policies such as fuel taxation on health-related behaviours currently exists. Only three studies were identified reporting associations between fuel price or taxation and obesity, whilst nine studies reported associations specifically with physical activity, walking or cycling. Estimates of the cross price elasticity of demand for public transport with respect to fuel price vary, with limited consensus within the literature on a probable range for the Australian context. Cost-effectiveness modelling of a AUD0.10 per litre increase in fuel excise taxation using a conservative estimate of cross price elasticity for public transport suggests that the intervention would be cost-effective from a limited societal perspective (237 HALYs gained, AUD2.6 M in healthcare cost savings), measured against a comparator of no additional increase in fuel excise. Under “best case” assumptions, the intervention would be more cost-effective (3181 HALYs gained, AUD34.2 M in healthcare cost savings).ConclusionsExploratory analysis suggests that an intervention to increase fuel excise taxation may deliver obesity and physical activity related benefits. Whilst such an intervention has significant potential for cost-effectiveness, potential equity and acceptability impacts would need to be minimised. A better understanding of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a range of transport interventions is required in order to achieve more physically active transport environments.

Public Transport Integration

The importance of the issue of an effective mode of passenger transport is currently increasing. On the one hand there is an increasing economic demand for public passenger transport, on the other hand, there is a growing traffic share of individual automobile transport. The aim of this article is to define the importance of public passenger transport and to identify the problems of its operation. The integration of different modes of public passenger transport is proposed as a way to increase the competitiveness of public passenger transport. This paper analyses the individual elements of integration systems abroad and suggests the methodology of integration system applicable in regions where the share of public passenger transport is decreasing within the transport market.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS FOR THE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AGGREGATE DEMAND ESTIMATION: THE CASE OF THE METROPOLITAN REGION OF SÃO PAULO

This article investigates the application of economic indicators for the parametric estimation of public transportation aggregate demand. Since the transportation sector plays as vital role in a city infrastructure the objective is to present a method of selecting economic indicators that assist in the study of urban public transport demand, taking as a case study the Metropolitan Region of Sao Paulo (MRSP). Using econometric modelling, it was estimated the effect of variables explaining total traffic in the transport system, and more specifically examine the role of fares and the employment and wage indicators. Statistical tests were performed to check the validity of the analyzed models and develop a rank of indicators according to their performance as regressors. The subset of indicators that were representative of industrial activity and more related to the local economy had the best performance as a forecasting tool.