Public Transport Fleet Research Articles

Revitalization of Greater Khartoum Urban Transportation System

<p class="p1">Khartoum metropolis depends on a single-modal transport – vehicular road system. Mass transport modes are completely absent making Khartoum unable to meet citizens’ mobility demand. Thus passengers facing long time delays in transport stations. Slow traffic speeds and severe traffic jams result in long trip periods, high traffic accidents rates and high suspended particulate concentrations accumulating in the air. This situation is attributed to:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> <p class="p3">• Use of small-sized vehicles running on limited paved road network. <p class="p4">• Adoption of extensive grid iron planning patterns lacking multi-grade intersections. <p class="p4">• Eroded public transport fleet and extremely overcrowded urban centres. <p class="p5">Negligence of public transport systems integration into landuse plans and urban structure restructuring difficulty crippled public transport revitalisation for no space is left for mass transport infrastructure construction. Moreover, transport systems’ operation mismanagement and focus on economic development increased pressure on transport systems. <p class="p6">This paper endeavours to point out the deficiencies in public transport services and proposes the areas of reformation. <p class="p6">To revitalize urban transport, Khartoum main transport infrastructures must be efficiently operated by establishment of a talented transport authority supported by strong legislations and popular authorization and able to adopt sustainable mobility solutions to meet current and future traffic demands by: <p class="p3">• Rehabilitating and expanding the existing infrastructures. <p class="p4">• Deploying large-capacity multimodal transport systems including river transport, bus rapid transit systems, tramways and metropolitan railways to connect Khartoum polycentric and its sprawling outward growth. <p class="p4">• Mitigating environmental pollution and enforcing stringent road safety measures. <p class="p4">• Reviewing traffic laws to tighten traffic regulations and control traffic flows. <p class="p5">Investment priority should be given to river transport. It is economically feasible, has large carrying capacity and safe and almost accident free. Furthermore, Nile Rivers dominate the metropolis, dictate urban configuration, direct urban growth, impose urban expansions patterns and influence spatial organization.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>

MODEL BISNIS KAWASAN STRATEGIS PARIWISATA KOTA PALU SULAWESI TENGAH

Palu city is the capital city of Central Sulawesi province bordering with Gorontalo Province. Indigenous people who inhabit the city of Palu is a community of Kaili tribe. Palu City was selected as a Special Economic Zone (KEK) for eastern Indonesia and consists of industrial zone, logistics zone and export processing zone. When viewed from the tourism business, there are several famous destinations such as Sibili Lake, Banua Mbaso, Hanging Bridge, Mosque 'Apung' Argam Bab Al Rahman, and Sis Al Jufrie.The method used by writer is qualitative with inductive data analysis. The results found that the city of Palu has shown passion in the field of tourism. Palu City presents a variety of new tourist destinations including natural attractions, culinary tours, and cultural tourism. For example Cars Tusuk Satay, Palu Bay, Four Palu Bridge, Solar Eclipse Monument, Nusantara Pavilion, and Palu Nomori Inscription. Then the tourists need to be given free space to satisfy the needs during a vacation. The business model implemented is that local people can entrepreneurship, gain profit, and create new jobs. Meanwhile, for the government through the Office of Culture and Tourism of Palu City is able to generate Pendapatan Asli Daerah (PAD) in addition to taxes from culinary executed by local communities. To support, the Office of Culture and Tourism of Palu City can hold and coordinate with all the agencies in accordance with their respective work programs. As the development and development of houses to become homestay homes and home industry, the integration of public transportation fleet, and build the concept of Information Management System (SIM) Tourism via online to package the tourism potential of Palu City.

PROTOCOL: The effects of road infrastructure, and transport and logistics services interventions on women's participation in informal and formal labour markets in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.

PROTOCOL: The effects of road infrastructure, and transport and logistics services interventions on women's participation in informal and formal labour markets in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.

Activities to convert the public transport fleet to electric buses

Abstract The modern level of motor transport typical for megacities poses a serious problem in the area of providing sustainable power and environmental safety in urbanized areas. Depleting the potential of improving fuel economy in automobiles using traditional fuel types increases the urgency of the issue of transition to alternative energy sources. Despite the fact that a significant part of city transport flows is formed by passenger cars, the transition of public and municipal transport to more environmentally friendly fuel can offset the negative impact of motor transport on the environment. The use of electric buses offers a solid approach to resolving the situation. The paper addresses activities that might lead to the transition to more environmentally friendly electrical vehicles. The paper gives an outline of issues associated with electric buses’ operations. It is shown that, in order to provide reliable and safe functioning of a fleet of electric buses, it is required to develop not only a network of charging stations but to upgrade the existing servicing system. Conditions required for the transition without compromising city transportation system safety are provided, a comparison of electric buses and hybrid cars’ infrastructure with that of conventional fuel cars operating at the Russian Federation market is given. Specifics of electric buses’ maintenance are explored. It is shown that providing the required quality of electric buses’ maintenance using the existing service centers requires a dedicated e-vehicle servicing station since the electric bus battery is charged using an electronically-controlled energy storage unit requiring regular checkups as a component of the electric equipment of the electric propulsion system. A process of daily maintenance of electric buses is developed.

Systematic Approach to Analyze Travel Time in Road-Based Mass Transit Systems Based on Data Mining

Road-based mass transit systems are an effective means to combat the negative impact of transport that is based on private vehicles. Providing quality of service in this type of transit system is a priority for transport authorities. In these systems, travel time (TT) is a basic factor in quality of service. This paper presents a methodology, based on data mining, for analyzing TT in a mass transit system that is planned by timetable. The objective of the methodology is to understand the behavior patterns of TTs on the different routes of the transport network, as well as the factors that influence these patterns. To achieve this objective, the methodology uses clustering techniques to process the GPS data provided by the vehicles of the public transport fleet. The results that were obtained when implementing this methodology in a public transport company are presented as a use case, demonstrating its validity.

Public transport fleet scheduling for minimizing total transfer waiting time

Public transport fleet scheduling for minimizing total transfer waiting time

MODEL PENENTUAN JUMLAH ARMADA ANGKUTAN KOTA YANG OPTIMAL DI KOTA BANDUNG

The research conducted is to make the model of determining the optimal transportation fleet in Bandung City, to overcome the imbalance between the number of available fleet and the number of passengers in need. This research type is quantitative with case study of two city transportation trajectory in the route of Sadang Serang Caringin and Riung Bandung Dago trajectory which at the time of preliminary research is categorized not optimal. To determine the optimal number of urban transport fleets, there are several variables associated with this include: number of passengers (P), fleet volume / frequency (F), vehicle capacity (C), cycle time (CTABA), load factor ( LF), and headway (H). The results showed that the number of public transport fleet for the route Dago - Riung Bandung and Sadang Serang - Caringin currently too much does not match the needs of the meaning is not optimal

Linking a transport dynamic model with an emissions model to aid air pollution evaluations of transport policies in Latin America

ABSTRACTConsidering the key role of the transport sector in the economy and its contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) and local air pollutant emissions, the development of integrated techniques to evaluate long-term urban trends should be a top priority for creating a more sustainable society. This paper presents an integrated model for reliable estimation of passenger transport emissions of local pollutants and CO2 using an integrated Land-Use and Transport Interaction (LUTI) model in Bogota (Colombia) between 2010 and 2026. Two additional scenarios are modelled to illustrate the use of the model to evaluate the impacts of possible policy interventions. An alternative system dynamics approach is proposed as part of a structured decision-making process. The methodology uses causal loop diagrams (CLD) from systems dynamics to explain cause-and-effect relations, through linking the transport emissions and transport subsystems. The emissions model considers 11 different vehicle categories in total and emission factors for CO2, NOx, THC and PM2.5 were established using local data collected with portable devices and from other available secondary sources. Adjustment factors were established in order to account for ageing of vehicles, technology improvements and changes in category distributions. The development of a general framework based on dynamic systems for assessing long-term emissions estimations according with the particular transport systems is needed for effective sustainable transport planning. The inclusion of adjustment factors for ageing and technology changes provides more reliable projections and helps identify important long-term trends in the emissions inventory. The scenarios proposed are meant to show the results obtained by the model to assist the decision-making process and do not represent current measures in the city or the best practices available. Due to an increase in the use of the private car transport, CO2 emissions will continue to grow in Bogota despite possible technology improvements. Results show that the use of natural gas in the public transport fleet would imply considerable emission reductions in all studied species, being this an alternative technology while electric buses become financially viable.

Toward a Demand Estimation Model Based on Automated Vehicle Location

The rapid increase in automated data collection in the public transport industry facilitates the adjustment of operational planning and real-time operations based on the prevailing traffic and demand conditions. In contrast to automated passenger counts systems, automated vehiclve location (AVL) data are often available for the entire public transport fleet for monitoring purposes. However, the potential value of AVL data in estimating passenger volumes has been overlooked. This study examined whether AVL data could be used as a stand-alone source for estimating onboard bus loads. The modeling approach infers maximum passenger load stop from the timetable and then constructs the load profile by reverse engineering through a local constrained regression of dwell times as a function of passengers flows. To test and demonstrate the potential value of the proposed method, a proof of concept was performed by conducting unsupervised experiments on 1 month of AVL data collected from two bus lines in Dublin, Ireland. The results suggest that this method can potentially estimate passenger loads in real time in the absence of their direct measurement and can easily be introduced by public transport operators.

Economic Viability of Electric Public Busses: Regional Perspective

The paper discusses the possible economic effect on regional development by developing applicable methodology and analysing differences in costs, both operational costs and initial investments, of two types of buses serving urban public transportation systems – diesel fuelled internal combustion engine bus and battery electric bus. Comparison of initial investments to operate the both types of buses shows large initial investments involved when electric energy is being added/used. At the same time operational costs, including energy costs, show opposite picture, especially with large annual distances covered – electrical energy is substantially cheaper. The research shows, that within current state of affairs in Latvia, initial investments of changing public transportation fleet to electric buses and the costs of battery replacement still outweighs the monetary advantages gained from lower operational costs and additional environmental benefits.

Benchmarking and Assessment of Good Practices in Public Transport Information Systems

Abstract The development of the Public Transport (PT) services in the last decade is characterized by wide implementation of various information systems and technologies, which cover different transport services, such as traffic planning, traffic network monitoring, management of operation of PT fleets, providing information to the passengers, ticketing payment, etc. The article considers the research part of a large EU-funded project POLITE aimed at public transport sector and increasing the awareness of infomobility services and PT attractiveness through the application of identified Good Practices and Best Practices. The objective of this paper is presentation of the methodology of benchmarking and assessment of Good Practices and choice of the best one on the basis of the multi-criteria comparative analysis. For assessment of Good Practices the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method is applied.

Overview of public transport policy developments in South Africa

Public transport in South Africa is one of the most burning issues in the transport sector. The government is faced with huge public pressure to improve public transport systems in the face of rising fuel costs, the pending implementation of expensive urban toll road systems in the Gauteng province, and elsewhere in urban environments, public transport safety issues, public transport fleet renewal, especially the commuter rail services, as well as limited resources to fund public transport. As a developing country, the South African Government has pressing funding issues such as funds needed to improve housing for the poor to improve schooling and public health services. Government is also faced with a vocal minibus taxi industry that transports an estimated 65% of all commuters in the country that is also insisting on subsidies for its services.Many policies and strategies have been put in place to address the public transport system in the country, some more successful than others. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the latest policy and strategy developments, to highlight the latest modal developments and to build on previous overviews in the Thredbo Conference series.

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.

Transit network design with allocation of green vehicles: A genetic algorithm approach

The use of fossil fuels in transportation generates harmful emissions that accounts for nearly half of the total pollutants in urban areas. Dealing with this issue, local authorities are dedicating specific efforts to seize the opportunity offered by new fuels and technological innovations in achieving a cleaner urban mobility. In fact, authorities are improving environmental performances of their public transport fleet by procuring cleaner vehicles, usually called low and zero emission vehicles (LEV and ZEV, respectively). Nevertheless there seems to be a lack of methodologies for supporting stakeholders in decisions related to the introduction of green vehicles, whose allocation should be performed since the network design process in order to optimize their available green capacity. In this paper, the problem of clean vehicle allocation in an existing public fleet is faced by introducing a method for solving the transit network design problem in a multimodal, demand elastic urban context dealing with the impacts deriving from transportation emissions. The solving procedure consists of a set of heuristics which includes a routine for route generation and a genetic algorithm for finding a sub-optimal set of routes with the associated frequencies.

Improving Urban Public Transport Operation: Experience of Rostov-on-Don (Russia)

In the early 1990s, Rostov-on-Don and many other Russian cities lost their traditional sources of financial support during the period of national economic reform. This resulted in problems with their public transportation systems. The private sectors in cities including Rostov-on-Don began filling in municipal transportation service gaps, often with very small fleets of small vehicles. Rostov-on-Don, however, in contrast to other cities, took early steps toward administrative reform for disciplined private sector capacity mobilization. Rostov-on-Don was able to restructure its route network to meet new demand patterns while increasing its total public transportation fleet through a combination of better public transportation integration in the city's perspective planning and competitive tendering of rights for public transportation market entry. Competitive tendering arrangements, at the same time, ensured that both public and private operators were adequately compensated for unremunerative service provision and social services were maintained.

Determining adjustment variables for rationalising a design for fleet operation in public passenger transport

This investigation was aimed at establishing aspects leading to adjusting the operational design of public transport fleet operation to make it more profitable for private investors. Data obtained from more than a year’s operation by the Alianza Sat S.A. was used (this being a bus-company alliance grouping about 100 buses from some of Bogota’s collective transport companies) for carrying out the present investigation regarding fleet administration and operation. Simply implementing conventionally-designed routing plans is not enough for rationalising fleet operation, as most public collective transport is not directly operated by companies The Alianza Sat S.A. bus fleet was used for testing hypotheses demonstrating that current operational design for the company’s routes (in Bogota’s current public transport market conditions) leads to reducing the company’s income. The investigation revealed that public passenger transport bus fleet revenue can be increased if aspects different to those considered in standard route design methodology are controlled. The investigation has determined alternative rationalisation for operational collective public passenger transport company design regarding adjusting aspects such as the demand pattern, operating scheme, route variability, etc. This will provide an innovative and useful tool for rationalising the operational design of bus routes operating in cities having weak public transport control and excess bus supply.

Air pollution at a hotspot location in Delhi: Detecting trends, seasonal cycles and oscillations

This paper uses spectral methods to analyze changes in air quality at a single monitoring site in Delhi since 2000. Power spectral density calculations of daily concentration data for particulate matter (PM10), carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrogen (NO x ) and oxides of sulfur (SO x ) reveal the presence of trends and periodic oscillations for all the pollutants. Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) is used to decompose daily data into statistically significant non-linear trends, seasonal cycles and other oscillations. Periods of sharp reductions were observed for both SO x and CO concentrations in 2001 and 2002, respectively. NO x concentration trends show a sustained rise from 2000 to 2004, followed by small decline thereafter. PM10 concentration trends remain essentially unchanged over the time period. All pollutants also show strong annual and biannual cycles. The observed trends in CO and NO x likely relate changes in Delhi's vehicular traffic emissions. The sharp drop in both the trend and amplitude of the seasonal cycle of CO coincides with the switch to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) as a fuel for Delhi's public transport fleet. Observed changes in SO x and PM10 concentrations were most likely caused by sources unrelated to vehicular traffic.

Concentration measurement in a road tunnel as a method to assess “real-world” vehicles exhaust emissions

An experiment aimed at comparing particulate matter (PM) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) concentrations produced in a road tunnel by buses is described. The experiment took place in 2001 in Bologna when a couple of buses belonging to the public transport fleet where driven backwards and forwards in a road tunnel closed to all other vehicles. Buses run in the tunnel for 8 h a day for 4 experiment days, each day using a different fuel: biodiesel, diesel–water emulsion, diesel–water emulsion with low sulphur content and commercial diesel. Average daily concentrations of PM of different sizes and of 12 PHAs were measured and comparison between different fuels was attempted in order to assess “real-world” exhaust emissions of different fuels. Due to heterogeneity of experimental conditions in different days and the relatively large measurement uncertainties, the effort was only partially successful, and it was not possible to state any firm conclusion on fuels reliability even if some indications in agreement with literature were found. Nevertheless, the experiment and the data analysis method developed could be of interest as a methodological approach for future experiments aimed at evaluating “real-world” exhaust emissions of single vehicles.

Optimal scheduling of public transport fleet at network level

This paper deals with the development of a strategic approach for optimizing the operation of public transport system that considers both user's objective and operator's objective. Passengers of public transport are assumed to seek a minimum wait time to conduct the trips, while on the other hand, operators are concerned with the efficient operation such as minimum fleet size. The average minimum wait time is to be achieved by creating an optimal despatching policy for each vehicle from the terminal. As for efficient operation the utilisation of vehicle should be maximised by having a minimum number of vehicles in operation. User's and operator's objectives are optimized within certain operational constraints such as vehicle capacity to maintain acceptable level of service. The i-model is contructed in a bi-level programming form in which the user's objective is minimized by dynamic programming and the operator's objective is minimized by various routing strategies. Furthermore, an algorithm and a contrived example are developed to solve and see the performance of the approach.

Urban Fleet Monitoring with GPS and GLONASS

The increasing volume of traffic in urban areas has resulted in steady growth of the mean driving time on fixed routes. Longer driving times lead to significantly higher transportation costs, particularly for vehicle fleets, where efficiency in the distribution of their transport tasks is important in staying competitive in the market. For bus fleets, the optimal control and command of the vehicles is, as well as the economic requirements, a basic function of their general mission. The Global Positioning System (GPS) allows reliable and accurate positioning of public transport vehicles except within the physical limitations imposed by built-up city ‘urban canyons’. With a view to the next generation of satellite positioning systems for public transport fleet management, this paper highlights the limitations imposed on current GPS systems operating in the urban canyon. The capabilities of a future positioning system operating in this type of environment are discussed. It is suggested that such a system could comprise receivers capable of integrating the Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Russian equivalent, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), and relatively cheap dead-reckoning sensors.