Travel Chain Research Articles

Conception of Personalized Parking Assistant Application

Since assessment of entire travel chains (ETC) depends on the properties of its elements, information provision in final phase of driving, namely parking movements is required. In order to enhance perceived quality, a personalization method for parking assistant applications (PAA) has been devised. Several PAAs have been compared and the parking habits and expectations of the travellers have been revealed. As it turned out all of the innovative properties are still not combined into one PAA, they can be found only partially. Furthermore, personalized information is considerably important for travellers, however the diversity of their needs is less than it was supposed at the beginning of the research. Based on these results conception of the parking assistant system (PAS) has been framed. For demonstration of the operation an application has also been developed. Finally the directions of the further research have been discussed.

Multicriteria Analysis of Hungarian Journey Planners

For planning and realization of travel chains journey planners can be used, but these often offer only partial solutions, especially considering the domestic operators. In order to reveal the improvement opportunities of the journey planners an evaluation method was developed. Using the method the journey planners can be compared in a quantitative way and ranked by functional, operational and visualization features. Journey planners of bus transport operators (Volan) in Hungary were analyzed and evaluated, some top features were also highlighted. The evaluation was performed taking the preferences of certain user groups into consideration, thus the values and ranking varied. The novelty of the paper is the application of our general evaluation method for Hungarian operators and the ranking among them, which provides input for development measures. The spatial properties of the journey planners were also represented in order to highlight the geographical differences.

Travel Behavior Change in Older Travelers: Understanding Critical Reactions to Incidents Encountered in Public Transport.

Accessibility of travel may be better understood if psychological factors underlying change in travel behavior are known. This paper examines older (65+) travelers’ motives for changing their travel behavior. These changes are grounded in critical incidents earlier encountered in public-transport travel. A scientific framework is developed based on cognitive and behavioral theory. In 29 individual interviews, travelers’ critical reactions (i.e., cognitive, emotional, and/or behavioral) to 77 critical incidents were examined. By applying critical incident technique (CIT), five reaction themes were identified that had generated travel-behavior change: firm restrictions, unpredictability, unfair treatment, complicated trips, and earlier adverse experiences. To improve older travelers’ access to public transport, key findings were: (a) service must be designed so as to strengthen the feeling of being in control throughout the journey; (b) extended personal service would increase predictability in the travel chain and decrease travel complexity; consequently, (c) when designing new services and making effective accessibility interventions, policy makers should consider and utilize underlying psychological factors that could direct traveler behavior.

Conflict resolution measures for connection dispatching

In this paper we present conflict resolution measures in connection dispatching suitable for railway transportation companies without having full access to relevant data. The presented measures do not only cover classical waiting/non-waiting-strategies but also alternative dispatching measures if a distributor train cannot wait. The fact of unknown travel chains and insufficient data availability is respected. Different solutions for a connection conflict are generated depending on travel destinations.Conflict resolution measures are divided into those that can be applied within the railway system and those that are outside the railway system. Each of the considered measures has been analysed by the use of a formalized procedure to get a structured prospect on background, impact, operability, compatibility and quantifying parameters. The procedure is explained by giving several examples. Finding conflict solutions, the focus is to achieve the highest possible completeness regarding potential solutions. At the same time, to reduce computing time, heuristic approaches are applied. The presented measures enable transportation companies to implement a system which calculates conflict resolution proposals to support the connection dispatching staff. This leads to a more automated, more transparent and more efficient dispatching process which results in more satisfied travellers.

Use of local public transport among people with cognitive impairments – A literature review

Being able to move around in the community including using different modes of transport is a prerequisite for being able to participate in activities outside home. This can be particular challenging for people with cognitive impairments. Still, research regarding public transport for people with cognitive impairments is scarce. In this narrative review scientific literature focusing on people with cognitive impairments and their needs in public transport, was identified and summarised. All aspects in the travel chain perspective were of interest. Literature search engines Scirus, Elin and Cinahl were used during the search.Thirty-four articles were included and analysed according to which part of the travel chain they covered in the used model. The results showed that the articles were unevenly allocated to the different parts of the model. Future studies based on real-world experiences are essential, and more user-centred approaches should be adopted. Moreover, there is a need for the development and evaluation of evidence-based rehabilitation. Finally, more research is needed to foster societal awareness of the problems and needs in the public transport of people with cognitive impairments taking the whole travel chain into consideration.

A Simulation-based Approach for Constructing All-day Travel Chains from Mobile Phone Data

The purpose of this work is to investigate replacing travel diaries with sets of call detail records (CDRs) as inputs for an agent-oriented traffic simulation. We propose constructing an agent population directly from a CDR dataset and fusing it with link volume counts to reduce spatio-temporal uncertainty and correct for underrepresented traffic segments. The problem of finding a set of travel plans which realizes a set of CDR trajectories and is consistent with a set of link volume counts is rephrased in terms of calibrating a choice model. This enables us to make use of an existing calibration scheme for agent-oriented simulations. We demonstrate our approach by an illustrative scenario with synthetic data.

Estimating individual promotional campaign impacts through Bayesian inference

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to estimate individual promotional campaign impacts through Bayesian inference. Conventional statistics have worked well for analyzing the impact of direct marketing promotions on purchase behavior. However, many modern marketing programs must drive multiple purchase objectives, requiring more precise arbitration between multiple offers and collection of more data with which to differentiate individuals. This often results in datasets that are highly dimensional, yet also sparse, straining the power of statistical methods to properly estimate the effect of promotional treatments. Design/methodology/approach – Improvements in computing power have enabled new techniques for predicting individual behavior. This work investigates a probabilistic machine-learned Bayesian approach to predict individual impacts driven by promotional campaign offers for a leading global travel and hospitality chain. Comparisons were made to a linear regression, representative of the current state of practice. Findings – The findings of this work focus on comparing a machine-learned Bayesian approach with linear regression (which is representative of the current state of practice among industry practitioners) in the analysis of a promotional campaign across three key areas: highly dimensional data, sparse data and likelihood matching. Research limitations/implications – Because the findings are based on a single campaign, future work includes generalizing results across multiple promotional campaigns. Also of interest for future work are comparisons of the technique developed here with other techniques from academia. Practical implications – Because the Bayesian approach allows estimation of the influence of the promotion for each hypothetical customer’s set of promotional attributes, even when no exact look-alikes exist in the control group, a number of possible applications exist. These include optimal campaign design (given the ability to estimate the promotional attributes that are likely to drive the greatest incremental spend in a hypothetical deployment) and operationalizing efficient audience selection given the model’s individualized estimates, reducing the risk of marketing overcommunication, which can prompt costly unsubscriptions. Originality/value – The original contribution is the application of machine-learning to Bayesian Belief Network construction in the context of analyzing a multi-channel promotional campaign’s impact on individual customers. This is of value to practitioners seeking alternatives for campaign analysis for applications in which more commonly used models are not well-suited, such as the three key areas that this paper highlights: highly dimensional data, sparse data and likelihood matching.

Evaluation of Multimodal Journey Planners and Definition of Service Levels

The demand for prior planning of travel chains and more available information during the journey is induced by the passengers’ growing requirements. Many journey planners are already available on the internet, but these often provide only partially comprehensive solutions and are difficult to be compared. For analysis and evaluation of the multimodal journey planners a framework of aspects has been developed, so that they can be compared in a quantitative way and ranked by functional, operational and visualization features. In the course of comparison some top features of the planners have been highlighted, too. Furthermore, development directions were determined, which are the following: multimodality, real-time data, location-based services and personalized recommendations for all transport modes. Hence the journey planners can be ordered into service levels.

Study on the Choice Model of Passenger Travel in Inter-City Transportation Corridor

This paper analyzed the influence factor of passenger travel selection in regional transportation corridor. From the point of inter-city traffic integration and the entire travel chain, introduced generalized cost function, established improved Logit model based on differences of travel mode choice behavior of passenger grouped by the income separately and calibrated the parameters of the model using maximum likelihood method. Finally, a case was made combined with Huizhou-Heyuan inter-city transportation corridor, analyzed and verified feasibility and practicality of the passenger flow distribution ratios model and predicted the changes of distribution ratios after the completion of inter-city rail transit in the future.

Accessibility Management at Municipal Level for People with Restricted Mobility: The Case of Thessaloniki

Ensuring accessibility throughout the “travel chain” is fundamental in order to ensure equal opportunities for people with restricted mobility. This paper deals with the need of investigating the municipal services related to the procedure of ensuring accessibility. Intending to develop a system that can be applied to municipalities of different size, the Municipality of Thessaloniki was used as a case study. The municipal structure was analysed, and a form of Delphi method was established through contacts with the corresponding municipal departments, members of the Municipality of Thessaloniki Accessibility Office, people active in disability issues as well as persons who are disabled themselves.

(Dis)Embodied Air Travel Experiences: Disability, Discrimination and the Affect of a Discontinuous Air Travel Chain

This article presents an investigation of the embodied air travel experiences of people with disability. The study was informed by human rights frameworks, social approaches to disability and critical tourism. The research design included a review of newspaper articles, human rights complaint cases, open-ended responses to a survey on the tourism experiences of people with disabilities and semistructured in-depth interviews. The findings revealed that the air travel practices routinely contravened disability discrimination legislation and identified a series of socially constructed constraints across the air travel chain from the preplanning of trips through to disembarking after a flight. What emerged from these experiences was that the embodied individuals became (dis)embodied at each stage of the air travel chain. The inequitable, inaccessible, undignified and dependent practices resulted in heightened anxiety, increased helplessness and, in some cases, humiliation to which they were not subjected in their everyday lives.

Is European school transport safe?—The need for a “door-to-door” perspective

To identify and establish the number and aetiology behind children being killed or injured during school transport from a door-to-door perspective by using experience from Sweden and the UK. Available crash data were analysed. In total, 361 children in Sweden during 1994–2001, i.e. 24% of the 1,515 identified children aged 6–16 who were injured or killed were identified in 256 school transport events. The predominant reason for being killed or injured when travelling on school transportation was when children were outside the bus (74%), either when passing the bus to cross the street, running in front of the bus (21%) or behind the bus (30%). Contrary to the general belief that children older than 12 are mature enough to handle traffic, more than 50% of the fatal injuries in Sweden affected children aged 13–16. Similar results were found in the UK. The afternoon school journeys, pedestrians after alighting from the bus, and those in situations that deviated from their normal routine were found to be particularly vulnerable. The travel chain perspective/or door to door perspective offers a promising approach for understanding school transport risks and for identifying effective countermeasures; including around bus stops and on the way to/from the bus stop. Data collection needs to be revised to reflect this approach.

Analysis of Travel Characteristics of Elders in Beijing

On the basis of the information concerning individual travel behavior of partial elders in the data of travel survey in Beijing in 2005, the article analyzes and compares the individual travel characteristics between the elders and the 19–60-year-old population in the aspects of travel ratios, travel time, travel distances, departure time, travel modes, and travel purposes, analyzes the rules of variation of elders' travel behaviors with age, compares the differences of the travel behaviors of the elders between the eight urban districts and the outer suburb districts. It also studies the travel characteristics and attributes of the travel behaviors of the elders' home-based travel chain. The research indicates that differences of the travel characteristics between the 61–65-year-old elders and the 19–60-year-old contrastive population are small, the travel ratio of the elders is slightly lower than that of the contrastive population, the travel mode is mainly walking, and the flexibility level is significantly lower than that of the contrastive population. Besides, the travel distance of the elders falls off sharply with age, and other factors, such as sexes, spouses, family structures, etc., have significant impacts on the elders' travel behaviors.

Transport and tourism: roadmap to integrated planning developing and assessing integrated travel chains

The article reviews planning strategies in tourism and transport based on experiences from a German project on event travel. Firstly, the concept of ‘travel chains’ is introduced as a way to create sustainable tourism products. These ‘travel chains’ combine travel and tourism activities, with particular attention to the ‘transit region’. Secondly, an assessment tool has been developed which aims to offer a practical approach to assessing the sustainability of transport services and packages. The concept of the measurement tool and the selection of indicators are presented and illustrated by the assessment of a ‘travel chain’ tested in the summer of 2003.

The Travel Agent: Delivering More Value by Becoming an Operational Risk Manager

Travelers have to handle with various risks and uncertainties by themselves or they can ask a travel agent to act on their behalf in order to minimize and/or to solve them. We believe that the new nature of the activities that could be offered by the travel agencies would rather be a risk management service than just the retailing of prepackaged services. To address this problem of service design, we have conceived a risk management service offer grounded on multidisciplinary approaches. The main idea is to apply cost-based valuation methods to manage the risks arising along the travel chain.

Travelling by urban public transport: exploration of usability problems in a travel chain perspective

Travelling is an important precondition for other occupations, and to support travelling for people with functional limitations in-depth information about usability problems in urban public transport is needed. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore usability problems in public transport in a travel chain perspective focusing on the physical environment and inherent aspects of it. Service Route travellers were contacted on board buses and a strategic sample of 20 persons participated in focus group interviews. The participants were used to travelling but the results demonstrated that they faced a broad range of usability problems when travelling. By analysing the usability problems in a travel chain perspective, several aspects of the personal, environmental, and occupational components in usability problems were elucidated. The results provide a structure for further analysis of usability problems in urban public transport, in research as well as in practice. Knowledge about the usability problems different groups of people experience when travelling increases knowledge of the environmental impact on occupational performance and how to design supportive traffic environments for people with functional limitations.

Theoretical understanding and methodological challenges in accessibility assessments, focusing the environmental component: an example from travel chains in urban public bus transport

In order to increase the theoretical understanding of the concept of accessibility, this paper reports the results from an exploration of methodological difficulties inherent in systematic accessibility assessments of single persons' travel chains in urban public bus transport. In addition, Special Transport Service (STS) travellers' perception of environmental demands in public transport are reported.This study was designed to explore the environmental component in accessibility problems systematically. Twenty persons entitled to STS were recruited in order to travel by low-floor bus, Service Route Traffic (SRT) or STS. Two different methods were chosen. Critical incidents were collected during participant observation, and by means of a pilot instrument based on the Enabler Concept independent environmental assessments were performed.Not all environmental details registered during the participant observations were in agreement with the independent environmental assessment, and different reasons for the disagreements were reported. In addition, participants travelling by STS gave information about what hindered them from using conventional public transport.The theoretical understanding behind accessibility assessments has benefited from the methodological challenges mapped out in this study. In order to interpret accessibility, the individual perspective as well as the population perspective are necessary, which means that complementary methods are needed.

Travel Chain Enabler: Development of a pilot instrument for assessment of urban public bus transport accessibility

Among the issues relating to the needs of citizens with reduced functional capacity, accessibility problems throughout society are gaining interest. The focus of this paper is on methodology for assessment of urban public bus transport accessibility. The aims are to describe the development of a pilot version of a new instrument, the Travel Chain Enabler, and to identify problems to target for further research. Based on the previously developed Housing Enabler instrument and a literature review, the development of a pilot instrument was initiated. In several steps, three different raters recorded accessibility on site while traveling by public bus transport in a Swedish city. The results showed the relevance of the assessment approach, but definition problems, difficulties as regards reliable measurements, and/or paucity of administration instructions were demonstrated in 32% inter-rater reliability analysis indicated moderate agreement. The detailed specification of the different kinds of problems and assessment difficulties is of the outermost importance for further research in the field. With current results as a new point of departure, major methodological challenges will be more constructively dealt with. (Less)

The vital role of street design and management in reducing barriers to older peoples' mobility

Travel encompasses a much wider environment than a journey by a person in a vehicle, thus actual travel takes place within the ‘travel environment’. Travel is very complex but it can be subdivided into three broad components: the person; the vehicle; and the built environment. Travel can only be carried out if the three components are linked by means of a ‘travel chain’ and a journey cannot be made effectively if all the links are not efficiently joined. For many mobility-impaired people the ‘travel chain’ is negated by ‘built environment barriers’. Travel is interdisciplinary and only an interdisciplinary approach can reduce barriers and increase mobility. Thus this paper is interdisciplinary in its approach to a major transport problem — the ‘unfriendly street’. Accessible buses are starting to come into operation in the United Kingdom and expectations are high that the travel of older people will increase because of these buses. The authors use recent research to challenge this belief and argue that there will be little increase in travel by older people owing to present low patronage and built environment barriers. The authors then identify major barriers to travel which make streets very unfriendly and itemize 18 barriers to access which can be removed by good design. Design parameters are presented to overcome the major problem of unfriendly surfaces in paved areas and the paper concludes by reiterating that travel for older people can only be increased by an interdiscipline approach which links ‘friendly buses’ with ‘friendly streets’.