Public Transport Operators Research Articles

Electric bus charging station location optimization considering queues

The transition to new forms of urban transport, which are environment friendly, efficient, and cost-effective has become a pressing issue of modern times. Battery electric buses are being deployed worldwide, marking a change in public transport planning and operations. The emergence of fast and ultra-fast wireless charging for electric buses has brought about the need for new planning processes and associated decision-support models for their deployment. The objective of this paper is the development of a model for optimally locating fast wireless chargers in an electric bus network, which considers delays of buses queuing for opportunity charging at charger locations. An integer linear programming model is formulated for that purpose: the model minimizes the investment cost for deploying opportunity charging facilities. An M/M/1 queuing model is employed to incorporate bus queuing considerations at terminal charging locations. The proposed model is demonstrated to a benchmark instance and results are discussed.

A GTFS data acquisition and processing framework and its application to train delay prediction

With advanced artificial intelligence and deep learning techniques, a growing number of data sources are playing more and more critical roles in planning and operating transportation services. The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), with standard open-source data in both static and real-time formats, is being widely used in public transport planning and operation management. However, compared to other extensively studied data sources such as smart card data and GPS trajectory data, the GTFS data lacks proper investigation yet. Utilization of the GTFS data is challenging for both transport planners and researchers due to its difficulty and complexity of understanding, processing, and leveraging the raw data. In this paper, a GTFS data acquisition and processing framework is proposed to offer an efficient and effective benchmark tool for converting and fusing the GTFS data to a ready-to-use format. To validate and test the proposed framework, a multivariate multistep Long Short-Term Memory is developed to predict train delay with minor anomaly in Sydney as a case study. The contribution of this new framework will render great potential for broader applications and deeper research.

Designing fast-charge urban electric bus services: An Integer Linear Programming model

Currently, there is serious political support for the decarbonization of transport locally, nationally and even internationally. Public transport operators are focusing on the use of electric buses as an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality. However, using electric buses requires a functional infrastructure of urban charging points. Fast-charging can be made available thanks to the progress made on the major technological charging devices in recent years. In this study, we consider an optimization problem of the design of an infrastructure for a fast-charge city electric bus service. The decisions which have to be made include determining a mixed fleet of conventional and electric buses, points for electric chargers and power stations, quantities of charging plug devices, a distribution of electric buses between the routes, and matching chargers with power stations. The objective is to maximize the route-weighted total passenger capacity of electric buses. An Integer Linear Programming model has been developed to complement the existing non-linear model. The new model is efficient if the number of possible charging spots is small, which is natural and frequent in practice. Extensive computer experiments demonstrate that our approach delivers near-optimal solutions of the studied problem in ten minutes for real-world instances on a standard PC and it outperforms the earlier approach on every instance.

Passengers’ Satisfaction towards Service Quality with Public Transportation in Kathmandu Valley

The operation of public transportation is a public service. Nepal's only cooperative public transportation system is Sajha Yatayat. Additionally, many public transportation options are operated by private companies. Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal; hence the population and public transportation are under significant strain. Therefore, this location was chosen for the research on passengers' satisfaction with the service quality of public transportation. The survey issued 80 questionnaires to riders of public transportation. 52 surveys were returned. Forty of the samples were valid for analysis. 26 passengers (65%) said that evening and nighttime access to public transportation was extremely limited. In addition, 16 (40%) of respondents felt uneasy riding in public transportation. Similarly, 27 (67.5%) respondents noted poor hygiene, and 22 (55%), dangerous public transportation. However, the majority of passengers are dissatisfied with the accessibility, comfort, cleanliness, and safety of public transportation. Only the transportation fare provides satisfaction to passengers. In order to increase passenger happiness, the relevant authority should be accountable for enhancing the service quality of public transportation.

Public Transport Prioritization and Descriptive Criteria-Based Urban Sections Classification on Arterial Streets

The present paper is aimed at improving minimization methods in traffic flows, particularly reducing the costs of civil transportation through sections of the transport network by giving priority to public transport in densely developed areas. In cities with a radial and radial–circular planning scheme of the road network, where arterial traffic flows converge in the central part, the challenge of street congestion with traffic often arises. As a result, delays of all types of vehicles increase, which causes excessive travel time for users of private and public transport. In this regard, it is proposed to divide the sections of the transport network into eight types based on their geometric parameters and traffic conditions. This differentiation of sections improves the existing methods for determining the spatial delay of traffic flows on sections of the transport network with different parameters. It was achieved by considering the duration of vehicles passing signalized intersections and pedestrian crosswalks and the sections of streets between them, while simultaneously recording the duration of public transport movement, as well as the time they spend at stopping points, using GPS receivers. The results of onsite monitoring and further computations revealed that there are particular urban sections with specific, different distances between adjacent stop lines that are critical for public transport operation. Furthermore, based on the delay criterion, there were three different passage modes proposed to improve the efficiency of the traffic.

Managerial decisions to recover from Covid-19 disruption: A multi-objective optimization approach applied to public transport operators

The resilience of transport systems, facing natural or man-made disruptions, has been widely discussed in literature in terms of recovery capabilities concerning infrastructures, suggesting solutions to provide users an acceptable level of service along the interrupted network. However, in the context of the Covid-19 outbreak, the disruption has stressed the resilience of transport systems not on the supply side but rather at organizational level for transport service providers. Indeed, the sudden and drastic decrease in users due to the restrictions imposed by governments to limit the pandemic spread has implicated severe economic consequences in the running of transport companies. In this paper, attention has been focused on the public transport sector to analyse the effects of different initiatives, which companies could undertake in response to the demand shock caused by the Covid-19 emergency. Notably, an optimization procedure has been developed with the aim of determining feasible Pareto-front solutions, which correspond to trade-off conditions for the concurrent maximization of the company profit and the minimization of outsourcing services. The time span necessary to implement the examined recovery measures has been considered together with the limitation to appropriate threshold values for the main cost and income items influencing the company operations management. The proposed approach has been applied to the case study of an Italian public transport company to appraise different post-Covid-19 resilience strategies.

Vehicle Design Strategies to Reduce the Risk of COVID-19 Transmission in Shared and Pooled Travel: Inventory, Typology, and Considerations for Research and Implementation.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a plethora of ideas for modifying and redesigning public transportation and shared mobility vehicles to protect workers and riders from contracting the disease while traveling. This research seeks to inventory these strategies, and to organize and distill them in a way that enables researchers, policymakers, and public transport and mobility service operators to more systematically and efficiently evaluate them. Through literature search and analysis, the COVID-19 risk-mitigating vehicle design (CRVD) typology was developed, articulating 12 categories of strategies (e.g., Seating Configuration, Barriers) and 12 mechanisms (e.g., physical distancing, physical separation) by which the strategies may reduce COVID-19 spread. A secondary contribution of this research is to gather opinions of experts in fields related to COVID-19 and its transmission, about the identified CRVD strategies and mitigation mechanisms. The typology and expert opinions serve as a launching point for further innovation and research to evaluate the effectiveness of CRVD strategies and their relationship to user preferences and travel behavior, within and beyond the current context. Public transport and shared mobility service operators can use the CRVD typology as a reference, in conjunction with industry guidance and emerging research on strategy effectiveness, to aid decision-making in their continued response to the pandemic as well as for future planning.

Reactions of the public transport sector to the COVID-19 pandemic. Insights from Belgium

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, public transport has been one of the hardest hit transport modes, losing ridership due to fear of contagion. This can partially be explained by the lack of preparedness in the sector to a pandemic scenario, as only few cities had epidemic contingency plans for the transport sector. To anticipate disruptions caused by future crises, we look at the preparedness and the response to COVID-19 by the public transport sector in Belgium. We interview all public transport operators in Belgium and analyze the interviews through the disaster management framework. We also aim to distill the lessons that can be learned from the pandemic to increase resilience in future public transport planning. We find that no operator in Belgium had contingency plans ready for a pandemic scenario, but that other plans were deployed to adapt their offer to COVID-19 conditions. Although all operators lost a significant part of ridership, their offer was maintained throughout the crisis, albeit at a decreased level for some operators. The availability of reliable and real-time data is identified as an important learning by the operators, as well as the ability to identify a core response team in case of a crisis. COVID-19 was seen by the operators as a learning platform to face future crises and highlighted the need to increase reactivity through better preparedness and data availability. We recommend the structural use of foresight methods through for example scenario planning to increase the preparedness of operators in the case of future disruptions.

Impact of public transport disruption on access to healthcare facility and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative case study in Metro Manila, Philippines

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many governments to halt public transport operations. A consequence of such disruption is the reduction in access to critical facilities by individuals who rely on public transport for their daily mobility. We investigate the impact disparities caused by the restriction of public transportation on the access of healthcare workers and patients to healthcare facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Metro Manila is an appropriate case study site because the duration of suspension of public transport in the mega-city is one of the longest in the world. The prolonged duration of the lockdown could have devastating impacts on the well-being of individuals who are reliant on public transport to access essential services. Guided by the Yin-Eisenhardt approach to qualitative research, we examined the data from 55 individuals using within-case and cross-case analyses iteratively for the purpose of building a model on the impact of change in access due to public transport disruption on well-being. We mobilized constructs and concepts known in the literature, such as well-being, access, disruption, resistance, resilience, and vulnerability, in developing our two-step conceptual model. Given the profound impact of the prolonged and system-wide suspension of public transport on the well-being of individuals, it is necessary to provide sufficient public transport and active transport infrastructure and services that can cover their mobility needs. The two-step conceptual model from this study can provide guidance on specific policy interventions.

State of public transport services to Ghana's disability population: Lessons from public transport operators in the Accra Metropolitan Assembly

Access to public transport services is crucial to the enjoyment of various life-enhancing opportunities by persons with disabilities (PWDs). However, the attainment of such services is confronted with varying levels of difficulties due to the non-conformity between transport service delivery and PWDs' needs. While many players like transport operators and vehicle manufacturers contribute to the delivery of transport services, this study examines the responsiveness of public transport operators to the travel needs of commuters with disabilities in Accra. Using a qualitative research approach, 24 public transport operators were conveniently sampled from 3 popular and busy transport terminals in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Thematic content analysis was employed using key constructs that emanated from the transcripts. The findings reveal that none of the public transport providers/operators had any knowledge of Ghana's Disability Act of 2006 and its transport provision. By this, all activities tailored to the disability population were generally informed by common sense despite refuting calls to acquire disability-friendly vehicles or support systems. It is recommended that sensitization on the transport provision of Ghana's Disability Act should be heightened by the Ministry of Transport given its ability to improve transport services to the disability population.

Evaluation of complexity of urban bus routes

Bus transport is the main (often the only) passenger transport connecting all cities of Uzbekistan and their rural settlements and has an important social significance. In modern conditions, the main factor that motivates passengers to choose certain routes and modes of transport in public transport is safe and high speed. Operational conditions on city bus routes vary in complexity, requiring a special approach to planning traffic, measures to ensure fast and safe movement on the route, standardization of the quality of services, and the introduction of fair systems of state financial support. The current methods and technologies for determining the level of complexity of the direction recommended by researchers require specialists to conduct complex tests or special knowledge. There is a need for simple and universal methods of assessing the complexity of the route so that the competent authorities regulating the activities of urban public transport and transport operators can quickly make decisions. This article systematizes the factors influencing the complexity of regular routes served by bus companies operating in the structure of urban public transport and proposes a method of assessing the index of route complexity.

The conceptual of barrier-free access for passengers based on transit-oriented development in Greater Jakarta - Indonesia

Increased mobility in the Greater Jakarta area has brought demand for people's accessibility. Providing a barrier-free travel system needs to be supported by understanding travel needs and the characteristics of the user community. This paper aims to describe the actual condition of barrier-free availability for public transport passengers based on Transit Oriented Development, then proposes a development concept. The research was conducted at several public transport nodes in Greater Jakarta, Indonesia. The data analysis method uses a qualitative descriptive analysis which explains the existing condition of the area, facilities, potential, and development plans. From observations, several locations have implemented the barrier-free principle to support the movement of all groups. Barrier-free facilities are generally found at mass public transportation stations such as Light Rapid Transit (LRT) and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT). In contrast, at Commuter Line (CL) stations, the concept has begun to be applied, and barrier-free facilities have been provided even though the number and limited kind. When using public transportation, barrier-free facilities must be improved for all groups, including seniors, people with physical and mental limitations, and pregnant women. Persons with disabilities may experience difficulties in accessing public facilities, such as narrow sidewalks, steep roads, and incomplete pelican crossing systems. Development can refer to regulations that the government has prepared. The development of various public transport that is currently underway must be balanced with the readiness of massive barrier-free facilities. Regulators and public transport operators in Indonesia can use the development of barrier-free facilities in other countries, such as Japan.

Cost analysis of autonomous shuttle services as a complement to public transport

To avoid negative externalities of autonomous vehicles on urban mobility, they should complement and not compete with public transport. Therefore, we analyze the influences on the costs of extending the service of an autonomous shuttle pilot. We identified how changes in the trajectory size, the service frequency and the average speed affect the required number of shuttles and the costs to provide this service. Then, we also compare the difference between having a service with an on-board operator or with a remote supervision. On a 3km trajectory, having a shuttle frequency every 5 minutes will necessitate, with the current average speed, 5 shuttles and therefore it will be worth to have a remote supervision. We then suggest refining assumptions regarding the new costs that remote supervision and on-demand services will induce with inputs from the industry and public transport operators.

Optimization design of real-time scheduling scheme for city bus vehicles based on BP neural network

Urban public transportation is inseparably related to people’s travel and life. Prioritizing the development of public transportation is a major national policy proposed by the Chinese government, especially to actively promote the development of intelligent public transportation systems. Developing and building advanced intelligent public transport operation and scheduling management system, designing efficient, flexible and low-cost operation and scheduling mode, improving the management level and service quality of public transport enterprises, and thus improving the road traffic condition of the whole city, is undoubtedly the future development direction of public transport enterprises. This paper combines the problems of bus operation and scheduling in China at the present stage, and proposes the operation and scheduling model and method of the intelligent urban public transportation planning system, with a view to realizing a flexible public transportation operation model suitable for different service situations and providing systematic theoretical support for solving the imbalance between supply and demand of public transportation.

Energy Demand Model of Battery E-Buses for LPT: Implementation, Validation and Scheduling Optimization

The progressive conversion of conventional bus fleets into full-electric fleets have gained focus in recent years, instilled by awareness about the environment and significant trends of urbanization. Public transport operators in major cities worldwide have put efforts into fulfilling this change. However, an efficient electrification process is still a challenge for most operators. This paper aims to propose an E-Bus vehicle model that estimates the actual energy consumption. The proposed model is implemented on the case study of a real bus line for Local Public Transport (LPT) and considers all technical characteristics of the vehicle. Real-time input data are represented by real driving cycles of the actual bus fleet and slope profile of the line. Real-time input data allow to establish directly the influence on the energy consumed during real operations. As simulation results, the global energy consumption and battery State of Charge (SOC) are then computed for the whole daily service operations. The simulation results are validated with the real data available and several scenarios are then considered within the simulations. Based on the results obtained, further improvements are proposed and discussed aiming to optimize the utilization of bus fleet, regarding both vehicles scheduling and new charging solutions.

Effects of Queue Jump Lane on Public Transport: Case Study Using Microsimulation

Abstract Public transport priority is an essential transport engineering technique for the transition to sustainable urban mobility. This article presents a case study that simulates the effects of introducing a queue jump lane followed by a bus lane beyond an intersection compared to a dedicated lane only in the section beyond the intersection (without introducing a queue jump lane). The monitored parameters were speed and reliability of public transport. The simulation was performed using the PTV Vissim program. The case study was evaluated in terms of public transport operation, as well as selected effects on other road traffic with the aim to determine the optimal traffic engineering design and improve public transport operation in practice. This case study provides valuable insights into the effects of these priority measures. The results can contribute to the improvement of public transport operations.

Identifying the parameters influencing the adoption of electric intermediate public transport: a case area of Gwalior city

The emission from transportation sectors is identified to contribute to air pollution and the same has brought electric mobility as an emerging solution to the problem. Electric mobility has yet to become a mainstream option for India’s vast population in terms of transportation, making it critical to understand people’s attitudes and preferences in choosing Electric Vehicles (EVs) over the convention once. Therefore, to understand the perceptions and factors which influence the adoption, a study is conducted in the area of Gwalior City. Some of the most influencing factors were selected from the literature study. And then a questionnaire was designed, where Intermediate Public Transport (IPT) operators were asked to choose on a scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 is highly important 5 beings I don’t know situations). Top influential factors like Purchase cost, Operation, and maintenance cost (O&M cost) were getting in this article, Vehicle capacity and battery swapping facility were found as the main influencing factors for Electric Vehicle adoption. A discrete choice model is used to generate utility equations. This was done for two operators of Intermediate Public Transport in Gwalior which are 4-Seater and 8-Seater respectively. Binomial regression analysis gave the utility values of selected factors, which the operators consider before adopting the Electric Vehicle. The results of the research will be helpful in understanding operators/drivers of Intermediate Public Transport, especially in the Intermediate Public Transport market. Results will help planners and policymakers to make sound decisions.

Public control over the activities of local government bodies under the conditions of marital state

The article analyzes the peculiarities of public control over the activities of local self-government bodies during the war. The definition of the concept of «public control» has been clarified, as well as the subjects of implementation of this control. The importance of the functioning of the institution of local self-government in the conditions of martial law due to the performance of a number of functions that are directly related to the vital activities of the community has been established. In particular, it is about rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure, providing the population with food products, organizing the educational process, registering internally displaced persons, ensuring the operation of public transport, etc. At the same time, wartime conditions dictate certain legislative obstacles in the implementation of public control. In particular, the work of deputy commissions and local councils may take place in a closed format and, accordingly, their draft decisions may not be made public. In addition, information contained in public electronic registers may temporarily become inaccessible to citizens. An analysis of the legal forms of direct community participation in solving issues of local importance, such as: local referendum, general assembly, local initiative, public hearings, was carried out. It is also mentioned about other forms of public participation in the process of activities of local self-government bodies, in particular voter assignments to their local council members, citizens' appeals, the number of which has increased significantly in recent times, consultative surveys on the needs and interests of the community. Conclusions were made about the importance of maintaining and developing the relationship between the community and local self-government bodies in extremely difficult times. It is determined that these can be remote meetings, online consultations and any other forms of implementation of legal tools, taking into account security rules.

Benefits and Challenges of Integration of High-Capacity Autonomous Buses to Public Transport Operations

High-capacity autonomous buses can make bus travel safer, smoother, and more energy efficient. However, despite clear societal and environmental benefits there are still several challenges to be addressed. In this article we present the outcomes of two research projects focusing on the public acceptance of high-capacity autonomous buses. Results indicate high degree of trust towards automation safety. However, in certain conditions, such as driving alone at night, perceived security appears to be an issue. In such circumstances digital forms of assistance replacing drivers will most likely not guarantee a sufficient degree of security. The paper also argues that bus automation is not a silver bullet to make PT more attractive. Instead, it shall be seen as rather an enabler of new applications allowing to efficiently prioritize PT in traffic flows to make it an attractive choice.

Violence detection in railway environment with modern deep learning approaches and small dataset

Passengers’ security is a continual challenge for public transport operators. For a few years now, cameras are installed inside vehi- cles (train, metro, tramway, bus.) but encountered numerous issues. The aim of this study is to propose new video based violence detection algorithms applied to a railway environment exploiting modern deep learning architectures. We have done a domain adaptation of a state-of-the-art architecture selected from the research community on a recorded railway dataset. Then to improve the selected architecture we have proposed to consider a long-term sequence with a recurrent mechanism. Trained architectures have given promising results on selected datasets of the community. The results obtained on our new railway dataset show that 3D convolutional network combined with recurrent networks can model and detect violence in complex railway environment.