Urban Bus Company Research Articles

Eco-driving for urban bus with big data analytics

Fuel consumption constitutes 20–30% of the operation cost of most bus companies. Consequently, reducing fuel consumption decreases operating costs and carbon emissions. Most previous studies adopted experimental methods to collect and analyze small data and focused on the influence of a single variable on fuel consumption. Therefore, the analytical results may not have appropriately reflected the operation requirements of the bus companies. Hence, this study obtains big data comprising of Telematics and operation records from an urban bus company and selects the relevant data according to several eco-driving aspects such as driving behavior, vehicle characteristics, driver characteristics, and weather. Subsequently, a decision tree, C5.0, is adopted to explore the relevant correspondence between variables that affect fuel consumption. Observing the analytical results, the variables of bus brand, bus age, bus weight, monthly passenger load, monthly salary, monthly working days, monthly overtime, and times of high-speed have relatively high influence on fuel consumption. Based on the results, therefore, several eco-driving recommendations of fuel consumption reduction are proposed. For the case of bus purchase, the urban bus company can cautiously consider bus brand, bus age, and bus weight. The company can also provide a friendly working environment with the reasonable monthly passenger load, monthly salary, working days in a month, and overtime to reduce the times of high-speed such that the fuel efficiency can be improved.

On the Environmental and Social Sustainability of Technological Innovations in Urban Bus Transport: The EU Case

Logistics in urban areas are currently suffering a radical transformation due to increasing population concentration and the massive use of cars as the preferred transport mode. These issues have resulted in higher pollution levels in urban environments and traffic congestion, impacting the world globally. Facilitating the use of sustainable transport modes is widely regarded as a necessity to cope with these adverse effects on citizens’ life quality. Hence, some regions, such as the European Union, are encouraging bus transport firms to make their business models more environmentally and socially sustainable. The aim of this research is thus to explore how technological innovations adopted by urban bus companies can improve cities’ sustainability. With this in mind, a combined Importance Performance Analysis (IPA)–Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was applied. In this way, their environmental and social sustainability effects were separately represented through hierarchical structures. Subsequently, the importance and performance ratings of technological innovations in each sustainability dimension were estimated, and thus two IPA grids were generated. These grids support managers in the establishment of more effective action plans to improve logistics sustainability in cities. The findings also provide guidance to governments on the technological innovations that should be promoted in future urban mobility plans.

A Data-Driven and Optimal Bus Scheduling Model With Time-Dependent Traffic and Demand

Urban bus companies have collected a tremendous amount of travel data from passengers in the past years. In spite of great value for bus schedule optimization, these data have not been fully exploited. In this paper, we leverage hundreds of millions of bus transaction records, generated when passengers board and alight, to infer time-dependent traffic and customer demand. When the traffic and demand information are available, we build an optimal model to schedule the departure time of each bus service with the objective of minimizing the average waiting time. Experimental results show that compared with the existing bus scheduling system, our model can help reduce the waiting time by a wide margin.

Economic Impact of the Use of Inertia in an Urban Bus Company

Public transport companies face great expenses. In order to be profitable companies, they need to reduce costs in all aspects. In addition, many countries have increased taxes to force transport companies to reduce their fuel consumption and, thus, greenhouse effect emissions. Efficient driving is the cheapest way to achieve this goal. In this paper, we analyze the economic impact of one of the most influential efficient driving techniques in an urban bus company. We calculate the difference of consumption between a well-performed deceleration using the inertia of the vehicle and a loss of speed obtained by using the brakes. For this purpose, we compare a real track performed by any driver in a precise vehicle with a simulated ideal track. To obtain the deceleration of the simulation, we develop a linear regression model on over 170,000 samples captured from the same vehicle over a period of one month. The results show that the costs of the vehicle under test in one month may be reduced by more than 2500 €

Comparing Job Stress, Burnout, Health and Traffic Crashes of Urban Bus and BRT Drivers

Professional driving is a very demanding task. According to the recent scientific evidence, Bus drivers tend to report high levels of occupational stress, burnout and occupational traffic accidents. With the implementation of new transportation modes, some substantial benefits and adverse circumstances for public transport operators have been documented. BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) systems have been implemented in different cities worldwide as an efficient alternative to fulfill difficulties and limitations related to traditional Urban Bus systems. However, in order to compare the efficiency of different public transport modes, it is important to assess, in addition to objective indicators, the incidence of psychosocial factors and other work-related issues over its operators. Aim: The aim of this study was to compare job stress, burnout, health indicators and traffic accidents suffered between two samples of professional bus drivers: Urban/City Bus and BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) drivers. Methods: The study sample was composed by 361 Colombian male Bus drivers with a meanage of 41.46 years, 222 of them working in Urban Bus companies, and 139 in BRT companies. It was designed a questionnaire composed by four sections: a) demographics and accident rates, b) job stress, c) burnout, and d) health indicators. Results: Significant differences were found between urban and BRT drivers for the case of different work-related variables, i.e., occupational stress, burnout and traffic accident rates, being these results more adverse, in all cases, for Urban Bus operators. Furthermore, both BRT and urban bus drivers reported elevated prevalence of adverse health habits and results. Conclusions: This study showed that the prevalence of work-related stress and burnout are significantly elevated among Colombian bus drivers. In addition, it was found that the bus drivers’ job stress is related to burnout indicators. Comparatively, BRT drivers tend to present better outcomes in terms of occupational stress, burnout and occupational accidents than Urban Bus operators. The intervention on these factors represent a potentially successful alternative for the prevention of occupational traffic accidents and negative health outcomes in Bus drivers.

Using common weights and efficiency invariance principles for resource allocation and target setting

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has proven to be a useful technique for evaluating the relative performance of comparable and homogeneous decision-making units (DMUs). In recent years, DEA-based resource allocation and target setting approaches have gained more and more attention from both practitioners and academic researchers. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism to simultaneously adopt the principles of common weights and efficiency invariance in allocating multiple resources and setting multiple targets among DMUs. To obtain the final plan, we minimise the deviation between the possible plan based on common weights and another feasible plan emphasising efficiency invariance. If the minimum deviation equals zero, one optimal plan will be determined. In general situations, however, the proposed approach will present two plans that have a non-zero deviation. One is generated using a common set of weights for all DMUs in such a way that the change of efficiencies is minimised, while the other is generated by strictly keeping efficiency scores unchanged yet having similar or even identical weights on input–output measures for each DMU to the utmost extent. The efficacy and usefulness of the proposed approach are demonstrated using a numerical example from previous literature and an empirical application to an urban bus company in China.

Efficiency of Urban Bus Companies in India: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis

The main aim of this paper is to measure the technical efficiency of publicly owned urban bus companies (UBCs) in India for the period 2000-01 to 2012-13. To examine the efficiency as well as determinants of the same, we estimated a stochastic production frontier based on a translog production function using the maximum likelihood methods. The empirical results reveal that profit and fleet utilization have a significant influence on technical efficiency of UBCs. We find that substantial inefficiencies, averaging between 12 to 41 percent, exist; in general, small and large size UBCs are more efficient than their medium size counterparts. Therefore, there exists no linear relationship between technical efficiency and firm size. We also examined the temporal relationship of the cross-sectional rankings of individual UBCs’ technical efficiency estimates. To address this issue, we calculated Kendall’s index of rank concordance and coefficient of variation of technical efficiency for sample period. It is found that, by and large, there has been stability in ranks across UBCs in regard to their technical efficiency.

Women bus drivers and organizational change

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to discuss the gender practices of a female urban bus driver who retired after 40 years (1967-2007) in an urban bus company in northern Spain. The main objective of this study was to explore and understand the move from irreflexive to reflexive practices from a gender perspective, and to uncover new key aspects relating to the influence of women in organizational changes.Design/methodology/approach– This qualitative exploratory study (interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA)) contains semi-structured interviews which explore, using a process of analytic induction, the personal- and work-related experiences of a woman who was a pioneer in the traditionally male-dominated field of urban bus services. In order to obtain a broader overview of the organization, and using the same method, four other female bus drivers from the same company were also interviewed, along with the personnel manager.Findings– Three different situations are presented. The first summarizes the woman’s personal motivations and hesitations during the 1960s regarding her decision to become a bus driver, occurring during her adolescence and pre-professional phase; the second illustrates the organizational and social reactions triggered by the (visible) presence of a lone woman in a traditionally male professional environment (resistance); and finally, the third situation shows the empowerment and organizational change which occurred, focussing on the possible deconstruction of the masculine hegemony at the heart of the organization.Originality/value– The IPA points to a new level of visibility of this transgressed traditional role, which combined both individual and collective actions. Her experiences recount how she overcame individual, organizational and social barriers. The authors suggest a new interpretation of this visibility, enabling us to imagine gender practice as an intersection of people, organizational change and society.

Blended learning system for efficient professional driving

One of the most important expenses in bus and truck transport companies is the cost of fuel. A small increase in the price of petrol can have a very negative effect on the companies' balance sheet. Apart from that, road transport companies are targeted due to their influence on air pollution. All of this has made the reduction in fuel consumption the most important priority for this type of companies. One of the cheapest measures to reduce fuel burning is efficient driving. According to various studies, more efficient driving could reduce fuel consumption by more than 5%. This article presents a blended learning method which makes use of an on-board tutoring system, an e-learning platform and traditional courses to guide professional drivers to more efficient driving. Through visual and acoustic recommendations, the tutoring system helps drivers achieve more efficient driving in real-time. The on-board system is complemented with a Web portal where drivers can check their driving and receive recommendations for further improvement and a set of traditional seminars imparted by experts in the area. To evaluate the performance of the whole learning system, the driving of 34 professional drivers of the Urban Bus Company (EMTUSA) in the City of Gijón (Spain) has been monitored and analyzed over a period of 12 months. The results of the study showed an improvement in driving efficiency and a reduction in fuel consumption of almost 7% compared to the previous year.

Aplicação de um programa de cessação do tabagismo com rodoviários urbanos

O presente relato tem como objetivo descrever a aplicação de um programa de cessação do tabagismo realizado em uma empresa de transporte coletivo urbano que implantou a política do ambiente livre do fumo. Pretende-se contribuir apresentando um modelo de intervenção de abordagem cognitivocomportamental possível de ser implantado no contexto organizacional. Método: o programa foi realizado em três etapas: levantamento no número de fumantes (n=90; 13% do universo total de funcionários), avaliação do nível de dependência de nicotina (n=30; 33% dos fumantes) e realização dos grupos de cessação do tabagismo, dos quais participaram 16 fumantes (18%). Os grupos aconteceram em quatro encontros semanais, com duração de duas horas cada, sendo que, após trinta dias, foi realizado um encontro de manutenção. Resultados: o programa demonstrou boa eficácia, pois, dos 16 fumantes que participaram, 7 atingiram a abstinência e 9 reduziram o consumo. Conclusão: os psicólogos podem ser agentes comprometidos em manter um ambiente livre de fumo e prevenir os efeitos do tabagismo nas organizações utilizando intervenções cognitivo-comportamentais como a descrita.

Analysis of the Technical Efficiency of Urban Bus Services in Spain Based on SBM Models

During the first decade of the new millennium, fueled by the economic development in Spain, urban bus services were extended. Since the years 2008 and 2009, the root of the economic crisis, the improvement of these services is at risk due to economic problems. In this paper, the technical efficiency of the main urban bus companies in Spain during the 2004–2009 period are studied using SBM (slack-based measures) models and by establishing the slacks in the services' production inputs. The influence of a series of exogenous variables on the operation of the different services is also analyzed. It is concluded that only the 24% of the case studies are efficient, and some urban form variables can explain part of the inefficiency. The methodology used allows studying the inefficiency in a disaggregated way that other DEA (data envelopment analysis) models do not.

Development and Evaluation of a Small Group-based Cardiocerebrovascular Disease Prevention Education Program for Male Bus Drivers

This study was conducted to examine effects of a small group-based cardiocerebrovascular disease (CVD) prevention education program on knowledge, stage of change and health behavior among male bus drivers with CVD risk factors. A non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used. Participants were 68 male bus drivers recruited from two urban bus companies. Participants from the two groups were selected by matching age, education and risk factors. Experimental group (n=34) received a small group-based CVD prevention education program 8 times over 6 weeks and 3 times through telephone interviews at 2-week intervals. Data were collected between December, 2010 and March, 2011, and were analyzed using chi-square test, t-test, and repeated measure analysis of variance with SPSS/Win18.0. Experimental group showed significantly higher scores in CVD prevention knowledge (p<.001) and health behavior (p<.001) at 6 and 12 weeks after intervention. Participants in pre-contemplation and contemplation stages made progress to contemplation and action. This was significantly better at 6 and 12 weeks after intervention (p<.001). Results suggest that small group-based education programs for CVD prevention are effective in increasing knowledge, stage of change, and health behavior to prevent CVD among male bus drivers with CVD risk.

Ergonomic work analysis of urban bus drivers in Rio de Janeiro city

This article is the result of a case study on ergonomic work analysis carried out in an urban bus company located in Ilha do Governador, Rio de Janeiro. The methodology used in this work follows the French-tradition Ergonomic Analysis of the Work (EWA) combined with the best tradition from anglo-saxon ergonomic work analysis. The situated diagnosis was performed to provide relevant information about the work conditions of a bus driver.

Ontologies and agents for a bus fleet management system☆

This paper reports on the design and implementation of a multi-agent decision support system for the bus fleet management domain. In particular, we show a complete description of the proposed multi-agent architecture and focus mainly on knowledge and software engineering features. The system has been developed in collaboration with the Malaga urban bus company (EMT) and it is based on a faithful reproduction of the real operating conditions of three existing lines of this company.

Optimal Pricing in Urban Bus Companies in India

Optimal Pricing in Urban Bus Companies in India

Occupational categories and sickness absence certified as attributable to common diseases.

[corrected] This paper focuses on the relationship between sickness absence rates certified as attributable to common (non-work-related) diseases and occupational categories. A cohort of 2,909 workers from an urban bus company was analysed from 1994 to 1996 (8,388.7 person-years), who reported 2,893 non-work-related sickness absence spells of three days or more (78% of all sickness absence spells in the period). Rates of sickness absence were calculated and an extension of the Andersen-Gill approach to proportional hazards modelling was used to adjust covariables. Assistant staff (35.63 per 100 person-years), and bus drivers (37.23) had the highest incidence rates. After adjusting for demographic variables, employment duration and health status, it was found that all occupational categories had a significant rate ratio (RR) in comparison to the manager category. The strongest positive associations were found among bus drivers (RR = 2.45; 95% CI: 1.52-3.97), assistant staff (RR = 2.57; 1.67-3.94), and technical staff (RR = 2.42; 1.57-3.74). Occupational category was an important predictor of sickness absence incidence certified as attributable to common disease. Further research on the associations between working conditions and sickness absence needs to take into account the distinction between sickness absences due to work-related diseases and those due to common diseases.

"Victory Based on Violence Is Undesirable": The Little Rock Bus Strike of 1955-1956

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT EVENT IN LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, in the 1950s was without a doubt the desegregation of Central High School. The political drama and violence inspired by nine African-American students' effort to integrate the school has inspired many theses, articles, and books. The national media attention to the events of September 1957 clearly overshadowed an episode that took place two years before in Little Rock and North Little Rock that also involved its share of drama and violence but received only brief, local coverage. While the earlier events had relatively little to do with civil rights, they were the result of another crucial historical development, the urban evolution of the United States. On June 22, 1955, 178 drivers and mechanics of Division 704 of the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway, and Motor Coach Employees of America went on strike in Little Rock, North Little Rock, and Cammack Village.' The employer, Capitol Transit Company (CTC), and Division 704 had been unable to agree on an arbitrator to settle a wage dispute. While CTC president F. Norman Hill claimed the company could not afford to raise wages without going deeper into debt, the union insisted that the CTC was stuffing its pockets at the expense of drivers and mechanics.2 When the company decided to hire scabs to operate the buses, violence erupted. Although no one died as a result of the strike, it climaxed in the bombing of a bus that nearly killed two people. Yet the CTC strike has not been previously examined. Perhaps because the decline of urban transit systems in general does not attract a lot of study, even intense episodes in that history, such as the CTC strike, have been forgotten. But the strike merits examination for its inherent drama, the role it played in the history of Little Rock transit, and how it reflects the broader history of public transportation in the United States. In addition to representing a breakdown in labor relations, the strike exacerbated a strained relationship between the city governments of Little Rock and North Little Rock and CTC. The city of Little Rock had filed several civil suits against the company going back to June 1951. One of the cases was not resolved until 1958, two years after CTC had surrendered its franchise, ending the strike.3 The North Little Rock city council argued with the company in 1953 over franchise and service agreements.4 These conflicts between labor, the company, and officials of Little Rock and North Little Rock all had their roots in changes in the structure of the American city. How could an urban bus company expect to make enough money to substantially raise wages or pay higher franchise fees and assessments to cities when fewer people were riding buses every year? This was a question posed not only by CTC but by transit companies across the U.S. By the mid-195 Os, automobiles were stealing customers from bus companies, and television provided Americans entertainment without their having to leave the house at night.5 The abandonment of restrictions on rubber and gasoline after World War II had increased the production of automobiles, which had caused a drop in the price. Postwar prosperity enabled a wealthier middle class to purchase cars and suburban homes and move farther away from inner cities. Prosperity also meant transit companies spent more for labor while seeing smaller profits. The federal government began to improve urban highways, making car travel more convenient within cities.6 All of this added up to a death sentence for private urban transit systems across the country. Nearly 200 companies ceased operations between 1954 and 1963. Some communities the same size as the Greater Little Rock area (150,000 in 1960) saw their transit systems completely vanish.7 Although Greater Little Rock's transit system survived, it witnessed a sharp decline in ridership-and fare revenue-in the years following World War II. …

Installing an urban transport scheduling system

Bus and driver scheduling methods developed by the authors and their associates form the basis of the leading British commercial scheduling system installed for many organizations throughout the 1980s. New research in the 1990s led to more advanced systems. This paper describes the transition from these research-based systems which had been demonstrated to operating companies through to the implementation of a fully operational system for an urban bus company. After outlining the bases of the scheduling methodology, the paper works through the stages of demonstrating and developing a system to meet the real needs of a client while under considerable pressure of time. It is shown that substantial savings were achieved, and that a good scheduling system can assist in the evaluation of alternative operating arrangements. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND EFFICIENCY OF URBAN BUS COMPANIES: THE CASE OF SPAIN

The aim of the present study is twofold. First, to provide new information concerning the technical characteristics of urban bus companies on the basis of a sample of medium and large-size cities in Spain. Second, to analyze the degree of efficiency of those companies and to quantify the reasons for this efficiency. The results should be useful in evaluating possible changes in public policies relating to urban transport, specifically changes in the way the market is organized and in pricing. The analysis is carried out by estimating a cost function. The sample is made up of a panel data set consisting of observations of nine Spanish companies that operated during the period 1983–1995. The specified functional form is translogarithmic. The output unit of measure adopted is bus*kms run. The cost function includes the network length for each company, thus permitting evidence concerning economies of density and economies of scale. The use of panel data allows us to estimate the cost function, taking into account that each company is affected by the specific characteristics of each individual city, the different features of the network in question and by different levels of efficiency. The economies of scale have been calculated, taking into account that the features of the network and of the city – represented by their specific individual effect – will vary with the company's level of output. Finally, an analysis is made of the relative productive efficiency of the companies, as well as of the variables likely to influence that efficiency.

Time-Serial Substitution Effects of Absence Control on Employee Time-Use

A 6-year study tracked the effects of a group-level absence control program within a Midwestern urban bus company. By modeling employee time-use options systemically, effects were examined graphically with daily precision. Short-term nonlegitimate absence decreased and time worked increased, but unintended substitution effects occurred as employees discovered legitimate ways to exploit absence and time scheduled off. Propositions for future research and methodological insights are noted.