Public Transport Planning Research Articles

Longitudinal analysis of public transport usage by older people using a latent Markov model

ABSTRACT Understanding trends in public transport usage by older people over the years is important for the long-term planning and development of age-friendly public transport. Despite extensive research on travel patterns of older people, very limited studies have explored the evolution oftheir public transport usage over the years. Using six years of smartcard transaction data and anonymous cardholder membership data from Shizuoka, Japan, we develop a latent Markov model to account for unobserved heterogeneity and to analyze the evolution of public transport usage by older people. The results indicate that age, gender, and residential built environment influence trends in publictransport usage by older adults over the years. There are five latentstates for older men and women, respectively, demonstrating theexistence of unobserved heterogeneity. Propensity to use public transport affected by unobserved factors tends to retain the same, especially for older people in the latent states of very low, low, and very high propensities.

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.

The influence of service performance and passenger satisfaction on public transport loyalty in a small city in a developing country

Public transportation is widely considered more attractive in developed countries compared to developing countries, primarily due to its level of service performance, and the influencing factors vary depending on the characteristics of the place and the community. Meanwhile, passenger loyalty is essential to increase the demand for public transportation. This research aims to investigate the impact of service performance and passenger satisfaction on passenger loyalty to public bus transportation in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The research was conducted on six Trans Koetaradja Bus corridors that connect the city and its surrounding areas, and the data was analyzed using the multiple regression method with SPSS. The results showed that that service performance and passenger satisfaction had an impact on passenger loyalty, with a correlation coefficient of 0.563. However, the determination value (R2) was only 0.317, indicating that only 31.7% of the service performance and passenger satisfaction affected passenger loyalty to the Trans Koetaradja bus. The remaining 68.3% were influenced by other variables. Meanwhile, the low contribution of service performance and passenger satisfaction was likely due to the fact that Trans Koetaradja passengers have private vehicles, which are considered more efficient. This can be seen from the respondents' trip frequency of only 1-2 times a week. To address this issue, integrated and accessible public transportation and mixeduse urban planning are needed in Banda Aceh to improve travel duration. It is hoped that these results can improve the public interest and loyalty to public transportation in their daily activities.

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.

Intelligent algorithms of construction of public transport routes

Today, in public transport planning systems, it is relevant to a search for a possible route with a minimum time. The aim of the work is the development of intelligent algorithms for constructing public transport routes, the development of programs, and the conduct of a computational experiment. Research methods are the theory of neural networks. The paper considers Hopfield neural networks and proposed recurrent neural networks. However, in Hopfield neural networks, the chances of solving this optimization problem decrease as the matrix size increases. A recurrent neural network is proposed, represented by a differential equation to solve this problem. As a result, the number of iterative computations can be reduced by n2 times than in the Hopfield network.

Millimetre Wave and Sub-6 5G Readiness of Mobile Network Big Data for Public Transport Planning

The need to solve public transport planning challenges using 5G is demanding. In 2019, the world started using 5G technology. Unfortunately, many countries have no equipment that is compatible with 5G infrastructures. There are two main deployment options for countries willing to accept 5G. They can directly venture to install relatively expensive infrastructure, called 5G SA (standalone access). However, more countries use the 5G NSA (non-standalone access) alternative, a 5G network supported by existing 4G infrastructure. One of the considerations for choosing NSA 5G is that it still performs 4G equalisation in its area. The data throughput is faster but still uses the leading 4G network. Interestingly, there are three types of 5G: low-band (sub-6), middle-band (sub-6), and high-band (millimetre-wave (mmWave)). The problem is determining the kind of 5G needed for public transport planning. Meanwhile, mobile network big data (MNBD) requires robust and stable internet access, with broad coverage in real time. MNBD movement includes the movement of people and vehicles, as well as logistics. GPS and internet connections track the activity of private vehicles and public transportation. The difference between mmWave and sub-6 5G can complement transportation planning needs. The density and height of buildings in urban areas and the affordability of the range of the connections determine 5G. This study examines the literature on 5G and then, using the bibliographic method, matches the network coverage obtained in Indonesia using nPerf data services. According to the data, urban areas are becoming more densely populated. Thus, this could show the differences in the data quality outside of metropolitan areas. This study also discusses the current conditions in terms of market potential and the development of smart cities and provides an overview of how real-time mobile data can support public transport planning. This article provides beneficial insight into the stability and adjustment of 5G, where the connectivity can be adequately maintained so that the MNBD can deliver representative data for analysis.

A Simplified Framework for the Equity-Based Spatial Assessment of Alternative Public Transport Networks

Nowadays, approximately 75% of the European population lives in urban areas, and these figures are expected to grow in future. The consequent expansion of cities means that the population might locate its residence far from daily facilities, generating a so-called transport social need. The possibility to easily reach education, health, recreation, and job opportunities is a key factor in fostering and guaranteeing the social inclusion of people in society. Spatial planning plays a fundamental role in filling the gap between people residing in the center and those living in the suburbs. In particular, public transport planning should ensure access to essential services, providing at least the same opportunities as private vehicles. In this context, this study presents a simplified quantitative method to consider equity in transit network design and assessment, considering horizontal and vertical indicators based on the socio-demographic characteristics of a population and the accessibility to main opportunities. The validity of the indicators is tested by applying them to a case study located in the Apulia region (Italy). The approach could be considered a basis for more complex transport-network design optimization oriented to social inclusion in urban areas.

Planned meetings: Multiplicity, boxed-in dialogues, and deliberative bureaucracy as social form

In what ways are meetings a social form? How are meetings organized and how do organizations structure meetings to produce consensus around visions of the future? In this article, planning meetings, which gather representatives from the regional Public Transport Authority and the municipalities involved in public transport planning in Stockholm, Sweden, is probed as a social form. By structuring the meetings as collaborative planning processes, the Public Transport Authority’s ambition is to draw on the municipalities’ multiplicity of experiences and views but then arrive at a consensus, on which a strategic document is produced. However, these meetings are perplexing as a social form. While expectations of their outcomes vary, dialogues in the meetings are boxed-in as they follow standardized protocols for agendas, discussions, and decision points. Planned meetings, as this article shows, are an undertheorized aspect of attempts at future-making among formally independent bureaucracies. The article concludes by proposing that deliberative ideals in bureaucratic settings allude to deliberative bureaucracy through the social form of planned meetings.

Indicators Affecting the Operation of Public Transport in Regions and Their Interfaces

The article reviews qualitative and quantitative indicators to measure transport demand. After the review of the indicators and taking into account the specificity of the analysed region and the availability of data, the selected indicators were divided into five indicators groups: demographic, public transport usage description, public transport service and infrastructure, automobilisation and economics. A database of relevant indicators has been developed to execute the evaluation. The study yielded three separate results: data of city municipalities, circular municipalities and regional municipalities. The purpose of this article is to identify the most important indicators that influence the passenger flows in regional public transport and to identify the interfaces between the indicators. The main raised hypothesis was that different groups of municipalities will have different key indicators influencing the use of public transport and that public transport planning cannot follow the same methods. Multiple Variable Analysis and Simple Regression Analysis were chosen to test the hypotheses and clarify the most important indicators. The analysis shows that unemployment has the greatest impact on the number of passengers on suburban routes, while bus mileage on suburban routes has the smallest impact. The number of buses also has an impact on suburban passenger flows.

Exploring Public Transport Transfer Opportunities for Pareto Search of Multicriteria Journeys

Multimodal public transport networks (MMPTNs) in modern cities are becoming increasingly complex. This makes finding optimal journey routes challenging due to a large number of transfer options that need to be properly considered. Furthermore, the complexity of the problem is compounded when multiple conflicting travel criteria are considered (e.g., travel time, walking distance, travel fare, etc.). This paper proposes a transfer graph (TG) model to explore the transfer opportunities of the MMPTN to support efficient journey route planning. TG considers all possible transfer opportunities, while employing a representative mechanism to optimize the TG structure that supports efficient route planning algorithms. Based on the proposed TG, we develop two exact algorithms to search the Pareto-optimal solutions for multi-criteria journey planning (MCJP) over the MMPTN. The first algorithm runs faster by eliminating many partial solutions at an early stage, which is more suited for lowering computation time at the expense of marginal degradation in output quality. In contrast, the second algorithm provides a more dependable solution by incorporating accurate journey time prediction that caters to the evolving traffic conditions. We also develop techniques to accelerate the TEDE and TEAE algorithms. Experiments on real-world public transport networks and traffic data demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach for MCJP. Experiment results also reveal interesting insights on the impact of the TOs, number of transfers, and number of travel criteria on MCJP algorithms, which can contribute to better public transportation planning.

Preference of Urban Commuters on Implementation of Rail-based Public Transportation Plan in Mamminasata Area

The density of population and the increasing needs of Makassar city will affect the movement of society to fulfill their necessary. Public acceptance on rail transportation is one of the important keys in implementing sustainable transportation policies in the Mamminasata area. The aim of this study is to evaluate public acceptance regarding the planned public transportation. The survey in this study used the methods of questionnaire and interview that included the South Sulawesi Provincial Office with a total of 1002 civil servants who were also the users of commuters, then the data analysis was carried out by conduct the research about characteristics of the respondent’s acceptance on rail-based transportation. The method of data collection was conducted with respondent chooses their perspective and their acceptance with likert scale. The results of this study show the perception of acceptance is the main factor that affect the policy of implementing rail-based public transportation in the Mamminasata area.

MULTI-OBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION MODEL FOR A MULTI-DEPOT MIXED FLEET ELECTRIC VEHICLE SCHEDULING PROBLEM WITH REAL-WORLD CONSTRAINTS

This paper presents the problem of public transport planning in terms of the optimal use of the available fleet of vehicles and reductions in operational costs and environmental impact. The research takes into account the large fleet of vehicles of various types that are typically found in large cities, including the increasingly widely used electric buses, many depots, and numerous limitations of urban public transport. The mathematical multi-criteria mathematical model formulated in this work considers many important criteria, including technical, economic, and environmental criteria. The preliminary results of the Mixed Integer Linear Programming solver for the proposed model on both theoretical data and real data from urban public transport show the possibility of the practical application of this solver to the transport problems of medium-sized cities with up to two depots, a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles, and up to about 1500 daily timetable trips. Further research directions have been formulated with regard to larger transport systems and new dedicated heuristic algorithms.

Inferring origin and destination zones of transit trips through fusion of smart card transactions, travel surveys, and land-use data

This paper presents a data fusion method to infer the origin and destination zones of transit trips from smart card data. The fusion framework has disaggregate mixed multinomial logit models at its core that predict the most probable origin and destination zones of individual transit trips using smart card transaction records, land use data, and transit system characteristics. The logit models are estimated using revealed trip origin and destination responses from a travel survey that are augmented by land use and transit system data to provide contexts about the zones' trip generation and attraction potentials. For empirical analysis, the methodology is applied to the smart card system of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Specifically, it is tested under different system configurations (tap-on-only and tap-on-and-off) and for networks with substantial shares of automobile and walk access/egress. When applied to transit trips constructed from the smart card transactions, the estimated models successfully capture the spatial distribution of trip origin and destination at the traffic analysis zone level. The empirical analysis also demonstrates that the proposed fusion method can be appropriately used to reconcile information provided by transit smart card and travel surveys to generate up-to-date transit demand data necessary for public transport planning and operations.

New QR Survey Methodologies to Analyze User Perception of Service Quality in Public Transport: The Experience of Madrid

Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSS) have become an important tool for public transport planners, as improvements in the perceived quality of service lead to greater use of public transport and lower traffic pollution. Until now, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) enhancements in public transport have traditionally included fleet management systems based on Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) technologies, which can be used to optimize routing and scheduling, and to feed real-time information into passenger information channels. However, surveys of public transport users could also benefit from the new information technologies. As most customers carry their smartphones when traveling, Quick Response (QR) codes open up the possibility of conducting these surveys at a lower cost.This paper contributes to the limited existing literature by developing the analysis of QR codes applied to CSS in public transport and highlighting their importance in reducing the cost of data collection and processing. The added value of this research is that it provides the first assessment of a real case study in Madrid (Spain) using QR codes for this purpose. This pilot experience was part of a research project analyzing bus service quality in the same case study, so the QR code survey (155 valid questionnaires) was validated using a conventional face-to-face survey (520 valid questionnaires). The results show clearly that, after overcoming a few teething troubles, this QR code application will ultimately provide transport management with a useful tool to reduce survey costs.

Influences on Public Transport Utilization: The Case of Auckland

Regression analysis is applied to cross-sectional data for 318 census area units served by the public transportation system in Auckland, New Zealand. The goal is to ascertain the determinants of public transport patronage for the purpose of commuting to work in the region. The analysis addresses both the modifiable areal units problem and spatial autocorrelation. Elasticity estimates are derived for a number of hypothesized drivers of patronage. The paper shows that adjusting for spatial autocorrelation improves the fit of the regression model to the data, a finding that should be of interest to public transportation planners and analysts working with cross-sectional data of a geographic nature.

Node, place, ridership, and time model for rail-transit stations: a case study

Nowadays, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) plays a vital role for public transport planners in developing potential city facilities. Knowing the necessity of this concept indicates that TOD effective parameters such as network accessibility (node value) and station-area land use (place value) should be considered in city development projects. To manage the coordination between these two factors, we need to consider ridership and peak and off-peak hours as essential enablers in our investigations. To aim this, we conducted our research on Chengdu rail-transit stations as a case study to propose our Node-Place-Ridership-Time (NPRT) model. We applied the Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) to examine the impacts of node value and place value on ridership. Finally, K-Means and Cube Methods were used to classify the stations based on the NPRT model results. This research indicates that our NPRT model could provide accurate results compared with the previous models to evaluate rail-transit stations.

Feeder Bus Reformation for an Urban Rail Project: The Case of Khon Kaen City, Thailand

The ability to use public transportation should be available throughout the whole service area and the public transportation network should be well connected. This research compared the potential coverage of a feeder bus network in support of urban rail transportation, as well as the impact of future transit network plans on public transportation accessibility in the city of Khoan Kaen, Thailand. The performance of the public transportation system was predicted based on multimodal transport and the completed urban rail public transportation plan, as projected in the year 2036, in order to fill gaps in the existing feeder bus network. The feasibility and characteristics of the route reformation policy concept should provide an effective feeder network for the urban rail system. A comparative study was conducted on stakeholder impact for a three-fold scenario: 1) separate individual lines for bus routes; 2) both forms of feeder bus networks (conventional and reformed); and 3) access to three designated utility areas from the entire feeder bus network. In this scenario, the most effective urban mobility support was provided by public facilities combined with a major roadway directly connecting to the designated positions. The time used on the extended bus route network increased by around 11% on average for the entire trip, while accessibility increased by approximately 67.75%, 47.9%, and 43.68% for the entire multimodal transport network. These analytical results make a significant contribution to future knowledge on urban transformation through urban mass transit projects. The contribution of land acquisition was significant. Also, the demand-responsive connection approach used in this study can be adopted to determine feeder bus reformation options, particularly in emerging economies.

Analisis Jaringan Trayek Angkutan Umum di Bangkinang Kota Kabupaten Kampar, Riau

Bangkinang Kota is the capital of kampar which is the center of regional activities such as government, education, economy and so on, so that in this area the usage of vehicles is quite high, especially private vehicles. The amount of private vehicles usage is not comparable to the amount of public transportation available. Therefore, the aim of this study wants to plan a new public transportation in the city center by connecting the surrounding areas. Public transportation planning is carried out by calculating the amount of demand for public transportation, then the results of the demand calculation are used as a reference for determining the route system. Before calculating the demand and determining the route system, the first step is collecting primary and secondary data, then analyze a demand in the form of trip generation, distribution of trip and mode selection. Furthermore, from the demand analysis, there are 3 (three) public transport routes who serve Bangkinang Kota.

Exploratory Analysis of Mobility of Care in Montreal, Canada

“Mobility of care” refers to the daily travel required to complete care labor such as travel to the grocery store, or to escort children. Though past research has examined the distribution of individual types of household-serving travel, little research to date, especially in the North American context, has examined mobility of care which combines all travel required to fulfill a household’s care needs. This paper presents the results of an exploratory analysis of mobility of care drawing on the 2018 Montreal Origin–Destination Survey. Specifically, this paper explores who completes this type of travel and how this mobility is completed. Findings indicate that mobility of care comprises 28% of adults’ daily mobility. Further, women are found to complete more of this type of travel than men, especially women from lower-income households. The presence of children in the household further widens this gendered gap, though the number of children present does not alter this trend greatly. Mobility of care trips are shorter on average than other types of travel and are frequently completed as part of a trip-chain. Further, car use and walking are more frequently used for mobility of care than other types of travel, while the opposite is true for public transport and cycling. The use of public transport for mobility of care trips is greater amongst women than men, especially those living in lower-income households. Taken together, results highlight the importance for practitioners to explicitly address mobility of care in transport planning, and particularly in public transport planning.

Integrating knowledge forms in public transport planning and policies: the case of the Lisbon metropolitan area

ABSTRACT Public policy debates about transport planning are often focused on more technical analyses to the detriment of other forms of knowledge. Combining document analysis and interviews with relevant actors, we identify a clear imbalance in the design of transport planning in Lisbon’s Metropolitan Area. There is a clear prevalence of political knowledge, with conflict among key actors as the major source of knowledge and the neglect of other forms, particularly those associated with deliberative processes. The findings also suggest that these imbalances decrease the legitimacy and optimality of potential solutions to complex problems in Lisbon’s transport policy.