Group Of Commuters Research Articles

Would you switch? Understanding intra-peak demand shifting among rail commuters

This study examines predictors of railway commuters' changes to departure time choice. Specifically, we sought to understand the impact of pre-departure information about in-carriage crowding on train choice behavior. We present the results of an online experiment, multiple-choice task, and a survey of UK rail commuters who regularly travel on crowded trains. Our findings show that most respondents are highly sensitive to crowding on trains. That notwithstanding, we identify a group of commuters who are free from constraints but do not use their flexibility to switch. This finding leads us to suggest further research into the decision-making processes of this specific sub-group of passengers to maximize the potential of personalized real-time and predictive provision of crowdedness information. Our study contributes insights relevant to practitioners grappling with innovative information provision to encourage operationally desirable behavior change among regular commuters.

„He only knows about everything, but does not experience anything!” – deciding on weekly commuting in terms of educational qualifications

This paper presents the group of domestic commuters who can only go home and meet theirfamilies – in the best case – once a week. It is based on a survey conducted in 2019 in which24 commuters together with their family members at home were interviewed about why theyhad decided on working far away from home. Looking for similar and different characteristicfeatures, we have analyzed the interviews in terms of the respondents’ educational qualifications.Our results prove undoubtedly that the lower qualifications the respondents have, the fewerjob options they will have; moreover, they are also in vulnerable position concerning gettingaccommodation, spending free time or finding suitable means of transport to go home.

Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Elderly Public Transport Mode Preference

The elderly population is increasing rapidly. Understanding travel behaviour for this group of commuters (in terms of the trip purpose and travel time) is necessary for future transport planning. Many researchers are working on travel’s spatial and temporal analysis to provide operational decision making and transport network planning. This research study’s primary purpose is to identify the influence of trip duration (using public transport), time of the day (usage of public transport), and public transport (PT) accessibility over public transport mode preference by elderly (over 65 years of age) commuters. The methodology of this study is divided into two parts as spatial analysis and temporal analysis. The research identified the dependency of trip duration, time of the day, geographical areas, and PT access over transport mode preference of elderly. The temporal study shows that transport mode preference can vary depending on trip purposes. However, for specific trip durations and times of the day, the elderly sometimes choose PT as a mobility mode. For instance, on shopping trips between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m., the elderly have a greater possibility of choosing public transport over private vehicles. Moreover, the results show the public transport mode preference based on different times of the day and trip purposes. Urban and transport planner can use the results to modify/plan public transport schedule, which can be easily accessible by the elderly population.

Optimization of the cost of urban traffic through an online bidding platform for commuters

In this paper, we consider the problem of increasing efficiency of a transportation system through optimizing the behavior of commuters. The assumption is that the time spent in the traffic can be represented by a monetary value and hence introduction of monetary compensations can lead to a more efficient organization of the transportation system. In our model, heterogeneous travelers differently assess the value of their time spent in congestion, hence it is presumably viable to reduce traffic in the most congested streets by introducing a bidding mechanism that will allow the participants who have a lower monetary value of time to receive a compensation financed by the group of commuters that have a higher value of time spend in congestion. We start by presenting a design of a bidding system for optimal allocation of traffic. We analyze the properties of the proposed algorithm and show that it leads to a more efficient allocation of vehicles than the theoretical allocation that could be achieved in the Nash Equilibrium of an uncontrolled transportation network. Subsequently, we verify the proposed auction design via an agent-based simulation model representing the Manhattan area of New York City. The results of our simulation confirm theoretical findings that the introduction of the proposed auction mechanism in a real city settings leads to a more efficient allocation of routes or means of transportation chosen by commuters.

Parental commuting and child well-being in Germany

The number of people commuting to work is increasing, including those who spend at least two hours travelling to and from work per day. In Germany, the group of these long-distance commuters comprises about 1.6 million people. To date, there has been little research on the possible consequences of long commuting times for family life and commuters’ children. On the basis of a pooled data set from the German Family Panel pairfam, we examine the relationship between parental commuting, the parent-child relationship and child well-being, both from the parent’s as well as the child’s perspective while also distinguishing between mothers and fathers. Some results indicate that long-distance commuting is associated with a poorer parent-child relationship and ultimately with lower child well-being. However, the association is rather sporadic and substantively weak.

Understanding Preferences of Delhi Metro Users Using Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis

Metro trains have emerged as a sustainable and cost-effective solution against environmental concerns and productivity losses caused by road traffic congestion. Understanding commuters’ needs and preferences are essential for promoting and providing metro services. In this work, we survey a group of Delhi metro commuters to study their metro convenience preferences. Using mixed-method analysis, we identify the factors that contribute to commuters’ convenience through stated preference valuations obtained from a survey (368 valid responses). These factors are a combination of metro route attributes (boarding/de-boarding stations and line interchanges) shaped by commuter experiences associated with safety concerns, last-mile connectivity, and their perceptions of travel time, crowdedness, and getting a seat. Based on our findings, we discuss the implications these preferences and perceptions have on user experience with the Delhi metro. We then propose design guidelines to enhance the existing Delhi metro app to improve user experience with metro train service.

An Integrated Choice and Latent Variable Model to Explore the Influence of Attitudinal and Perceptual Factors on Shared Mobility Choices and Their Value of Time Estimation

This work studies how the usage of shared mobility services could be influenced by latent factors. An integrated choice and latent variable model is adopted to explore the effects of three attitudinal and perceptual factors on bike- and car-sharing choices while simultaneously investigating the causes associated with each of the latent variables. A group of Chinese commuters’ stated preference mode choice data are collected. It is found that the probability to choose bike-sharing could be positively affected by “willingness to be a green traveler” and “satisfaction with cycling environment,” and car-sharing choice is positively correlated with “advocacy of car-sharing service.” By taking into account the interaction effects between the latent variables and travel time of the two services, a significant difference is discovered on the estimated value of travel time savings (VTTS) compared with other more restrictive model specifications. The finding highlights the importance to derive different VTTS for travelers with differentiated attitudes and perceptions as the tastes toward travel time spent could vary substantially. In other words, there would be different trade-off preferences across attitudinal groups, according to which transport service operators could customize their strategies on prices and levels of service offered.

Congestion and environmental toll schemes for the morning commute with heterogeneous users and parallel routes

We design a congestion and environmental toll (CET) scheme for the morning commute with heterogeneous users in a single OD network with parallel routes. The designed toll scheme relies upon the concept of marginal-cost pricing and is anonymous. The Henderson approach is used to model road congestion and the tolling problem to examine commuter's arrival time and route choice at the CET equilibrium (CETE). Linear interpolation is applied to approximate the emission cost function and the resulting CETE problem is formulated as an unconstrained optimization problem, which is solved by the modified Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) method. Unlike the existing approach, this novel approach does not require that the arrival of each group of commuters at the destination at the equilibrium follows a predetermined order, and can handle non-monotone (emission) cost function. As two special cases, no-toll equilibrium (NTE) and the congestion toll equilibrium (CTE) are also examined, and the two resultant equilibrium problems are formulated and solved by the same approach. This approach is shown to be more efficient than the existing approach. Bi-level programming models are proposed to formulate the optimal congestion toll and CET design problems, in which the CTE and CETE problems are the corresponding lower level problem. These models are solved by the double BFGS method, which uses a classical BFGS method to solve the upper level model and the proposed BFGS method to solve the lower level model. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the properties of the models and the efficiency of the proposed solution algorithms.

Extracting commuter-specific destination hotspots from trip destination data – comparing the boro taxi service with Citi Bike in NYC

ABSTRACT Taxi trajectories from urban environments allow inferring various information about the transport service qualities and commuter dynamics. It is possible to associate starting and end points of taxi trips with requirements of individual groups of people and even social inequalities. Previous research shows that due to service restrictions, boro taxis have typical customer destination locations on selected Saturdays: many drop-off clusters appear near the restricted zone, where it is not allowed to pick up customers and only few drop-off clusters appear at complicated crossing. Detected crossings imply recent infrastructural modifications. We want to follow up on these results and add one additional group of commuters: Citi Bike users. For selected Saturdays in June 2015, we want to compare the destinations of boro taxi and Citi Bike users. This is challenging due to manifold differences between active mobility and motorized road users, and, due to the fact that station-based bike sharing services are restricted to stations. Start and end points of trips, as well as the volumes in between rely on specific numbers of bike sharing stations. Therefore, we introduce a novel spatiotemporal assigning procedure for areas of influence around static bike sharing stations for extending available computational methods.

Macroscopic dynamics and the collapse of urban traffic

Stories of mega-jams that last tens of hours or even days appear not only in fiction but also in reality. In this context, it is important to characterize the collapse of the network, defined as the transition from a characteristic travel time to orders of magnitude longer for the same distance traveled. In this multicity study, we unravel this complex phenomenon under various conditions of demand and translate it to the travel time of the individual drivers. First, we start with the current conditions, showing that there is a characteristic time τ that takes a representative group of commuters to arrive at their destinations once their maximum density has been reached. While this time differs from city to city, it can be explained by Γ, defined as the ratio of the vehicle miles traveled to the total vehicle distance the road network can support per hour. Modifying Γ can improve τ and directly inform planning and infrastructure interventions. In this study we focus on measuring the vulnerability of the system by increasing the volume of cars in the network, keeping the road capacity and the empirical spatial dynamics from origins to destinations unchanged. We identify three states of urban traffic, separated by two distinctive transitions. The first one describes the appearance of the first bottlenecks and the second one the collapse of the system. This collapse is marked by a given number of commuters in each city and it is formally characterized by a nonequilibrium phase transition.

Travel Pattern and Fear of Crime among Women Commuters

The design of the public transport as to meet working women's travelling needs is still lacking in Malaysian urban scenarios. Having that in mind, the increasing crime rate among these vulnerable group in urban area had further increase their level of fear while commuting to work. This is especially true for many working women who have no choice but to travel using public transport to their work place on a routine basis. To further investigate the factors of women travel pattern that affect the fear level among these vulnerable group of commuters, time and age were considered in this study.

INVESTIGATION OF INFLUENTIAL FACTORS FOR BICYCLE CRASHES USING A SPATIOTEMPORAL MODEL

Abstract. Despite the numerous potential advantages of indulging in bicycling, such as elevation of health and environment along with mitigation of congestion, the cyclists are a vulnerable group of commuters which is exposed to safety risks. This study aims to investigate the explanatory variables at transportation planning level which have a significant impact on the bicycle crashes. To account for the serial changes around the built environment, the linear time trend as well as time-varying coefficients are utilized for the covariates. These model modifications help account for the variations in the environment which may escape the incorporated variables due to lack of robustness in data. Also, to incorporate the interaction of roadway, demographic, and socioeconomic features within a Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ), with the bicycle crashes of that area, a spatial correlation is integrated. This spatial correlation accounts for the spatially structured random effects which capture the unobserved heterogeneity and add towards building more comprehensive model with relatively precise estimates. Two different age groups, the student population in the TAZs, the presence of arterial roads and bike lanes, were observed to be statistically significant variables related with bicycle crashes. These observations will guide the transportation planning organizations which focus on the entity of TAZ while developing policies. The results of the current study establish a quantifies relationship between the significant factors and the crash count which will enable the planners to choose the most cost-efficient, yet most productive, factors which needs to be addressed for mitigation of crashes.

„Wir Slawen sind schrecklich sensibel...“ Fremd- und Eigenbilder in der Prosa Radek Knapps

„We, the Slaves, are terribly sensitive...” The creation of external and self-images in Radek Knapp’s prose works The influence of the foreign-born writers on the German-speaking literature is nowadays undisputed. In contrast to the so-called ‘migration literature’ (although the most authors fight against categorizing their literary works as ‘migration literature’, finding the term demeaning and ghettoized) in Germany, the writers of non-German mother tongue or non-Germanspeaking background in Austria have not received much academic attention so far. Radek Knapp (born in 1964 in Poland) belongs to the most distinctive Austrian authors, whose texts are mostly interpreted in the context of migration. He moved from Warsaw to Vienna in the age of 12 and defined himself to be expressed in German therefore dedicating his literary career mostly to German-speaking readers, although simultaneously taking his unique position between two cultures. For more than two decades his novels constantly gain popularity among the reading public. It is due to his protagonists who usually represent a group of cross-border commuters whose perceptively observations and satirical comments of Austrian as well as Polish reality make (otherwise familiar) surroundings appear unfamiliar or even exotic. The aim of the study is to investigate the creation of external and self-images in two most popular prose works of Radek Knapp: his literary debut from 1994 – the short story collection titled Franio and the novel Herrn Kukas Empfehlungen (Mr. Kuka’s Recommendations), published in 1999. Of particular interest is the confrontation of East and West, which defines the basic structure of Knapp’s works, including the use of stereotypes.

Commuting patterns of workers in a village of Barddhaman district, West Bengal

Commuting helps to keep balance between residence and workplace of workers. With growing accessibility and connectivity, the importance of commuting is increasing all over the world. It is becoming a major substitute to migration. In commute-studies, commute-pattern is an important chapter. It highlights commuters’ directions of movement, distance they cover, modes of transport they use, the time they take to commute, etc. Unlike the urban-based commute pattern, commute pattern in rural areas are relatively an under-researched issue. In fact, traditionally rural people are thought to carry a sedentary lifestyle. Using primary data, this study aims to explore the commute patterns of rural workers located in the village of Gandharbapur of Barddhaman district of West Bengal, India. All the commuters were found to be engaged in non-farm work. Commuters stem from two major groups. One group of commuters is accumulated farm-income induced. They possess sufficient agricultural land. Investing their surplus farm-income, they have established non-farm works. The second group of commuters is poverty-driven. They are landless poor or are marginal farmers and to escape poverty, they have slipped into these works. Located beyond the suburban area (Memari being the nearest town), most commuters commute to nearby rural areas. Due to non-availability of public transport, women commute less than men do. Regular-paid government employees commute longer than other workers commute. The article concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations for further research.

Assessing the potential impact of workplace charging for a group of commuters

A PHEV demonstration project gave 80 consumers within the Northern California counties of Sacramento, Yolo and San Joaquin the opportunity to drive a PHEV-conversion for at least one month each in lieu of one of their existing vehicles. Households decided for themselves when, where, and how much to charge the PHEV, if at all. Out of the 80 households, 25 were characterized as plausible future PHEV owners who also commuted to a workplace. Each of the PHEV-conversions was equipped with loggers which recorded all travel and charging data. To estimate the potential implications of added workplace charging infrastructure across a group of commuting households, each household’s vehicle usage is simulated with six hypothetical PHEVs, the design characteristics of which are outlined in Table 2 of this paper. Combining each household’s usage data with the hypothetical designs allows their PHEV-conversion experience to be generalized beyond the specific PHEV-conversion to plausible future PHEV designs. Since most households did not have access to charging infrastructure at work, charging events are simulated for each household every time they arrive at their workplace. Comparison between the recorded behavior and the simulated workplace charging case allows for an exploration of the potential impacts of workplace charging on the individual and fleet utility factor, workplace charging infrastructure requirements, and grid load. Workplace charging increases the total fleet average utility factor, however, the benefit varies considerably by household and vehicle charge depleting range. Based on simulation results, up to 75% of commuters would be able to use 1.44 kW charging without experiencing a decrease in electric miles driven, and workplace charging creates a new peak vehicle charging load on the grid in the morning, in the range of 0.8 to 1.4 kW per PHEV.

Criterion distances and environmental correlates of active commuting to school in children

BackgroundActive commuting to school can contribute to daily physical activity levels in children. Insight into the determinants of active commuting is needed, to promote such behavior in children living within a feasible commuting distance from school. This study determined feasible distances for walking and cycling to school (criterion distances) in 11- to 12-year-old Belgian children. For children living within these criterion distances from school, the correlation between parental perceptions of the environment, the number of motorized vehicles per family and the commuting mode (active/passive) to school was investigated.MethodsParents (n = 696) were contacted through 44 randomly selected classes of the final year (sixth grade) in elementary schools in East- and West-Flanders. Parental environmental perceptions were obtained using the parent version of Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale for Youth (NEWS-Y). Information about active commuting to school was obtained using a self-reported questionnaire for parents. Distances from the children's home to school were objectively measured with Routenet online route planner. Criterion distances were set at the distance in which at least 85% of the active commuters lived. After the determination of these criterion distances, multilevel analyses were conducted to determine correlates of active commuting to school within these distances.ResultsAlmost sixty percent (59.3%) of the total sample commuted actively to school. Criterion distances were set at 1.5 kilometers for walking and 3.0 kilometers for cycling. In the range of 2.01 - 2.50 kilometers household distance from school, the number of passive commuters exceeded the number of active commuters. For children who were living less than 3.0 kilometers away from school, only perceived accessibility by the parents was positively associated with active commuting to school. Within the group of active commuters, a longer distance to school was associated with more cycling to school compared to walking to school.ConclusionsHousehold distance from school is an important correlate of transport mode to school in children. Interventions to promote active commuting in 11-12 year olds should be focusing on children who are living within the criterion distance of 3.0 kilometers from school by improving the accessibility en route from children's home to school.

Job-induced Commuting between Two Residences – Characteristics of a Multilocational Living Arrangement in the Late Modernity

Against the background of the ongoing flexibilisation of labour markets and a rising labour force participation of (highly) qualified women, job-related commuting between a main and secondary residence has become more important in Western capitalist countries as is the case in contemporary Germany. The limited number of recent empirical studies on this kind of multilocational living arrangement almost entirely focuses on commuters in couple/family households. The main objective of this article is, firstly, to provide data about the characteristics and formation contexts of job-related multilocational household organisations as a whole, in order to make a contribution to the discussion of the forms and causes of this currently important phenomenon. Secondly, by means of comparison analyses, the multilocational form of living is compared to the group of long-distance movers, in order to provide insights into who prefers commuting to migration with the complete household under which circumstances. The article draws on data of a field research study, which have been obtained from an individual based random sample from official registers of inhabitants of four metropolises in Germany. The sample was restricted to individuals with specific characteristics (in-movers, age 25 to 59). The fully structured postal interviews were complemented by qualitative telephone interviews with selected commuters. The results show that commuters are a heterogeneous group. Living in a partnership and the social connections established thereby play a prominent role for multilocational household organisations. Among male commuters, one can distinguish between those who are young, never married and predominantly childless, on the one hand, and a group of older married commuters with children in the household, on the other. The vast majority of female commuters, however, live childless. As men commute between two residences even if they live with a family, they significantly more often have a job-related secondary residence than women. Late modern characteristics of job-related multilocational living arrangements are dual earner households for male commuters and high occupational positions for female commuters. The commuting between two accommodations is strongly connected to the career entry, on the one hand, and is also important in a later occupational career phase as a partly longer-lasting period, on the other hand. It may be suggested that the rise of fix-term employment will further increase the importance of multilocational living arrangements in Late Modernity.

Tracking the Duration of New Commute Modes Following Service from a Ridesharing Agency: Longitudinal Study

Monitoring the effectiveness of a ridematching service requires the analysis of two factors: the percentage of people who successfully change commute mode as a result of the service and the amount of time that people continue to use the new mode. The second factor is addressed by identifying a group of commuters who made a change in commute mode after receiving service from a ridesharing agency (RIDES for Bay Area Commuters, Inc.). This group of commuters was contacted quarterly over a period of 6 years and asked how they were getting to work. The average amount of time a client used the new mode was between 1.6 years and 1.9 years. The data show that somewhere between 8% and 14% of all clients will continue to use the new commute mode until they are no longer making the trip to work. Of all possible commute modes, people who travel in vanpools are the most likely to continue with their new mode for the longest period (more than 3 years).

Freeway Quality of Service: What Really Matters to Drivers and Passengers?

Although the concept of level of service for freeways is usually defined in terms of users’ perceptions, very few studies have sought drivers’ or passengers’ views about what is important to them. Such information is particularly important for the evaluation of extended trips on freeways as opposed to trips on a single section or segment. Such information is valuable not only for improving the Highway Capacity Manual but also for establishing appropriate criteria for assessment of intelligent transportation system proposals. The results of focus group sessions are reported in which a group of commuters discussed their views about determinants of the freeway quality of service that they experienced. Total travel time is the most important determinant for them, but a number of other aspects of the trip also matter, including safety, traveler information, and maneuverability (density). The importance of travel time is a reminder that travel is a derived demand, not something that commuters do for the pleasure of the drive.

Public Exposures due to Frequent Shipments of Radioactive Materials by Road

Data on population exposures arising from frequent shipments with radioactive materials (RAM) by road have been collected in the Netherlands in support to the Competent Authority for transport regulations. Results have also been used for national risk surveys. A ‘guideline’ has been written for the Competent Authority in support of radiological safety evaluation of licenses applied for nuclear activities involving RAM transport. Public exposures from routine RAM transport on a fixed route with about 3,000 shipments per year are less than 4 μSv per year. For a hypothetical group of commuters the annual dose is less than 20 μSv per year. However, a more detailed analysis shows that the annual doses to commuters are about 1 μSv per year.