Urban Mass Transit Research Articles

Analisis Kelayakan Tarif Bus Trans Koetaradja Berdasarkan Ability To Pay (ATP) Koridor 2A Pusat Kota-Blang Bintang

Since in 2018, Trans Koetaradja Urban Mass Transit is expected to provide maximum service to the community as users. Corridor 2A with the route Masjid Raya Baiturrahman-Lambaro-Blang Bintang. For now, the government applies full subsidies for bus users, meaning that bus users can ride this bus without paying. However, this condition will certainly not last forever. Calculation of the feasibility of bus fare based on Ability to pay is done to see the ability of this bus user to pay the bus fare. This study uses a Quantitative Descriptive Research Method through Survey Techniques involving 392 respondents to bus users given a survey form containing questions regarding: frequency of bus use, average monthly income and expenses and expenses to pay for transportation Respondents were selected based on activities, which were divided into 7 categories based on occupation, including: Students, Self-employed, Workers, Civil Servants, Non-workers and Housewives. The results of the questionnaire were then tabulated and calculated to see the distribution of ATP rates by considering income, percentage of expenditure on transportation and frequency of use. From the research results, the percentage of gender is 57% female and 43% male. The average frequency of use of the bus in 1 week is 4 times the transportation costs obtained range between Rp. 10,000 and Rp. 200,000 The average ATP value is Rp. 2,400.

Geo-spatial analysis of transit planning for sustainable tourism development in Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT In the contemporary urban landscape, the rail mass transit system assumes a crucial role in shaping city tourism, primarily attributable to its commendable efficiency in ensuring safety and optimizing travel times. A comprehensive understanding of this system becomes imperative for formulating strategies aimed at augmenting the tourism potential it facilitates. Consequently, this study employs rigorous spatial analysis, concentrating on tourist attractions and their accessibility levels within the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) center and an area outside the TOD center (non-TOD). The empirical results of this investigation unveil that the distribution characteristics of a substantial proportion of tourist attractions manifest clustering tendencies (Z-score exceeding 1.65), particularly in areas synonymous with historical and recreational activities. In contrast, specific activities such as cultural and agricultural pursuits exhibit a random distribution characteristic (Z-score between −1.65 and 1.65). Notably, it becomes apparent that activities characterized by distinct distribution patterns also harbour varying potentials for accessibility. In essence, this scholarly endeavour contributes nuanced insights into the intersection of urban rail mass transit systems and tourism dynamics, shedding light on the intricate relationships between spatial distribution, activity characteristics, and accessibility levels within diverse urban contexts.

Social Impact Assessment of Urban Mass Transit: A Case Study of Metro Rail in India

The country's efforts to improve its infrastructure are important for promoting economic growth and alleviating poverty. However, these initiatives often result in negative consequences alongside their positive outcomes. These negative effects can manifest in various forms, including social, cultural, economic, and environmental impacts. As such, it is imperative to anticipate and prevent these undesirable outcomes to achieve inclusive and sustainable development. The importance of Social Impact Assessment (SIA) and meaningful public consultation in infrastructure projects has been recognized by social scientists, policymakers, international financial institutions, and development practitioners as effective measures to mitigate adverse social impacts of development projects. This is equally applicable to urban transportation projects, which also require a thorough evaluation of their social impacts. In this paper, we examine the SIA rules and regulations under the RFCTLARR Act 2013, assess the social impacts of the Ahmedabad metro rail project (Phase-I), and propose mitigation measures to minimize negative impacts and maximize positive ones for all stakeholders involved. It is argued that addressing social issues early in the project and integrating them into resettlement management can greatly increase the chances of project success.

Electric bus arrival and charging station placement assessment using machine learning techniques

ABSTRACT The goal of this study is to create a dynamic model that can accurately forecast the estimated time of arrival of a bus at a specific bus stop using data obtained from the global positioning system (GPS) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Both operators and customers use accurate and timely bus arrival information. In turn, it helps determine the correct placement of charging stations when green-energy vehicles are introduced in the urban mass transit system. A plethora of machine learning models have been used for prediction. Additionally, we tailored an ensemble method based on the average prediction. The performances of these machine learning methods were estimated and compared using conventional measures, such as Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Squared Error (MSE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), and R-squared (R2) values. The results showed that the performance of the Random Forest technique used in this study was impressive, with MAE of 0.137, MSE of 0.054, RMSE of 0.233, and R2 value of 0. 999. The findings demonstrate that the proposed method is reliable for predicting the arrival times of urban and rural buses. Next, in order to position the charging points for Electric Vehicles (EV) along specific bus routes, self-organising map (SOM) is employed to optimise EV charging point placement locations, and the result signify better performance than the kNN and DBSCAN clustering approaches.

Analysis of Multi-Modal Public Transit Competing Relationships and Evolutionary Mechanisms in Cities in Cold Regions

In order to reveal the characteristics of the competition and cooperation of multi-modal public transportation in the cities of cold areas and to study the competitive relationship of multi-modal public transportation in cold areas, the urban public transportation system in cold areas is divided into three sub-systems, namely, conventional buses, urban mass transit, and cabs, to analyze the competitive relationship and evolution mechanism of multi-modal public transportation in cities of cold areas. We construct a multi-modal public transit Lotka–Volterra competitiveness model, considering that conventional buses and urban mass transit are mainly dominant in urban public transit systems in cold regions, and introduce the competitive influence effect coefficients and cooperative influence effect coefficients to analyze the mechanism of the evolution of the competitiveness between conventional buses and urban mass transit. The data on traffic supply and demand and travel of the Harbin bus system, a typical city in China, are collected, and the simulation analysis of multi-modal competing relationship and evolution mechanism of conventional bus and urban mass transit competition is carried out, respectively, with Harbin as the research object. The results show that the constructed model can better describe the multi-modal bus competition relationship and evolution mechanism.

Development of thermoelectric exhaust energy recovery system of a hydrogen internal combustion engine in a city bus using a Three-Dimensional multiphysics model

In this study, individual thermoelectric generator (TEG) module was developed and validated through comprehensive analyses and experiments. A model of the TEG module was constructed and subsequently verified through a coherent alignment with experimental results, ensuring its viability and accuracy within the application of interest. A thermoelectric exhaust energy recovery (TEER) system designed with a robust rectangular structure was also developed for an urban mass transit bus, which operates using a hydrogen internal combustion engine. By accommodating 40 TEG modules, each complemented with cooling fins, and placing cooling channels at the top and bottom of the exhaust channel, it was demonstrated that a proportionality between the power output and load resistance of the TEER system through a dimensionless analysis. The system’s three-dimensional multiphysics model constructed concurrently with the actual system facilitated both optimization and validation, predicting an energy recovery of 1.0–1.1% from the hydrogen engine exhaust and an optimal load resistance of 3.2 Ω under various operating conditions.

Assessment of the Current Bus Route Network in the Federal Capital City Abuja, Nigeria

The inadequacy of buses for the public transportation system in the Federal Capital City (FCC) of Abuja has resulted to the dominant use of private automobiles, which has created a lot of problems, such as, long waiting times, lateness to work, kidnapping and loss of man-hours. The effort of Government in providing high capacity public buses through Abuja Urban Mass Transit Company (AUMTCO), has not been satisfactory. Therefore, in this study, an evaluation of the existing bus route networks and the availability of public transport bus services in the FCC, including an assessment of the factors that determine the present choice of travel mode in the City is presented. The methodology adopted includes: manual traffic volume count, measurement of traffic data and scope of the current bus route network using GPSmap76Cx (GARMIN) receiver, and questionnaire administration. The results show that public bus is 0.12% of vehicular traffic volume in the metropolitan city, while private car has 86.81%, which carries significant consequences that impact different facets of its citizens' lives. The existing bus routes network does not cover Wuse II and Maitama districts. Mode choice influences by social demographic characteristics, such as; occupation, marital status, time spent going to work, bus inconvenience, time to leave home for work, and decision to patronize public mode if available are among the trip factors assessed. The mean peak travel speed on the bus routes ranges from 15km/hr to 23 km/hr, while average time spent from house to and at bus stop are 10 minutes and 20 minutes respectively for public bus. The results suggest that the existing bus route networks should be optimized to cover all the districts of the Federal Capital City for effective accessibility and services to commuters. This will improve the security indices of commuters in the Federal capital city.

Benchmarking Travel Time and Demand Prediction Methods Using Large-scale Metro Smart Card Data

Urban mass transit systems generate large volumes of data via automated systems established for ticketing, signalling, and other operational processes. This study is motivated by the observation that despite the availability of sophisticated quantitative methods, most public transport operators are constrained in exploiting the information their datasets contain. This paper intends to address this gap in the context of real-time demand and travel time prediction with smart card data. We comparatively benchmark the predictive performance of four quantitative prediction methods: multivariate linear regression (MVLR) and semiparametric regression (SPR) widely used in the econometric literature, and random forest regression (RFR) and support vector machine regression (SVMR) from machine learning. We find that the SVMR and RFR methods are the most accurate in travel flow and travel time prediction, respectively. However, we also find that the SPR technique offers lower computation time at the expense of minor inefficiency in predictive power in comparison with the two machine learning methods.

Optimization of Urban Mass Transit System Based on Support Vector Machine and Ant Colony Algorithm

Optimization of Urban Mass Transit System Based on Support Vector Machine and Ant Colony Algorithm

Road tunnel noise: monitoring, prediction and evaluation of noise-induced hearing loss.

Incessant increases in vehicles and massive road networks lead to traffic-related problems and noise pollution. Road tunnels are considered a more feasible and effective solution for solving traffic problems. Compared to other traffic noise abatement strategies, road tunnels also offer enormous benefits to urban mass transit systems. However, the road tunnels that are non-complying with the design and safety standards negatively impact commuters' health of being exposed to the high noise level inside the tunnel, particularly for road tunnels above 500 m in length. The study aims to evaluate the applicability of the ASJ RTN-Model 2013 by validating predicted data with the measurement data at the tunnel portal. The study also investigates the acoustic characteristics of noise inside the tunnel by analysing octave frequencies to inspect the correlation of noise spectrum for noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and discussed the possible health effect on the pedestrian and vehicle riders passing through the tunnel. The result shows that people are exposed to a high noise level inside the tunnel. The equivalent sound pressure levels at different locations inside the tunnel along the length observed between 78.9 to 86.5 dB(A), which exceeded the CPCB, recommended permissible limits for road traffic noise. The locations L1, L5, L6 and L7 found higher sound pressure levels at 4 kHz and relates to NIHL. The observed average difference between the measurement and predicted LAeq value at the tunnel portal was 2.8 dB(A) which is highly acceptable and confirms the ASJ RTN-2013 prediction model applicability for predicting tunnel portal noise in the Indian road conditions. The study recommends complete restriction of honking inside the tunnel. Considering the commuter's safety perspective, the road tunnels above 500 m must have separate walk sides for pedestrians with a barrier.

Assessing fuel economy and NOx emissions of a hydrogen engine bus using neural network algorithms for urban mass transit systems

Assessing fuel economy and NOx emissions of a hydrogen engine bus using neural network algorithms for urban mass transit systems

Growth Management and Sustainable Transport: Do Growth Management Policies Promote Transit Use?

Advocates of sustainable development typically consider mass transit to be more sustainable than their automobile-dependent alternatives and desire policies that can achieve higher use of urban mass transit. In this paper, we hypothesize that state-level growth management policies should increase transit use in two ways: first, by limiting core abandonment while accommodating potential increases in population, reducing development elsewhere; and second, by directing new development where transit systems are already well established. We tested this by analyzing 95 metropolitan areas across the United States, 16 with growth-management policies and 79 without. We found that the first set showed a statistically significant improvement in the percentage transit users. The empirical analysis on causality, however, suggests that the improvement is more likely due to an increase in occupancy rates within core areas, by limiting abandonment, rather than in shifting the location of new development to transit areas.

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.

Autonomous vehicles and changing the future of cities: Technical and urban perspectives

When the first car hit the road in the early 19th century, municipal officials, architects and urban planners had to think differently about the infrastructure and mass development of cities, whether existing or new. The age of narrow roads, pedestrians and short journeys gave way to wide boulevards, interstate highways and suburban growth. These urban planning improvements were intended to enable the car to transport a greater number of people more quickly and safely, without the drawbacks of urban transit. This caused cities to suffer from issues such as unnecessary demolition of houses, degradation of areas for roads, reduction or loss of public transport and dislocation of intimate communities. Now that the mass market will embrace autonomous cars, buses and other innovations over the next decade, urban designers and officials need to reconsider how disruptive technologies can influence our way of life, work and play. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) provide a new way of joining social conversations about urban infrastructure, mobility, community and street functions. AVs will disrupt the urban areas between city centres and the rural outskirts. This paper analyses the impact of AVs on modelling urban forms. The AV has the advantage of optimising various parking locations, thus freeing up the downtown area for other uses. The reduced cost per kilometre is also a popular advantage. Increased access to AVs benefits workers’ welfare, traffic flow, travel distances and city size. The paper concludes by discussing the overall implications of AV implementation for urban transport and mass transit.

How Do Individual Walk Lengths and Speeds, Together with Alighting Flow, Determine the Platform Egress Times of Train Users?

Egress times of railway passengers from train alighting up to station exit typically amount to some tens of seconds, but with much variability even at the train level. Here, we first model the egress time as the ratio of the walk length to the preferred walk speed, under free-flow conditions. Then, we model the possible occurrence of congestion among the users alighting from a train as a traffic bottleneck affecting those passing at a “queue focal point” during a “queued time interval.” Analytical formulas are provided for the CDF and PDF of egress times, covering the free-flow case and the congested case. Their computation is straightforward for bivariate Gaussian length-speed walk pair. A maximum-likelihood method is developed, together with a quick estimation procedure. A case study of four contrasted trains serving an urban mass transit station in Paris is reported. One train experienced free-flow alighting conditions, whereas each of the other three had its own bottleneck. The MLE method enabled us to recover all parameters but one, due to an issue of identifiability: the solution was to take the mean walk speed as exogenous.

A feather-inspired interleaf for enhanced interlaminar fracture toughness of carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites with lightweight, high-strength and high-modulus properties are in high demand across the fields of aerospace engineering , urban mass transit, new energy and architectural design . However, most CFRP composites suffer from delamination owing to the weak interlayer which plays an important role to transfer perpendicular load to plies. Here, inspired by natural hierarchical structures of feathers, a novel interleaf towards conventional CFRP composites was rationally designed and experimentally proved to be effective for significant enhancement of anti-delamination performance. Interestingly, ZnO nanorods grown on the electrospun nanofibrous mats and carbon fiber bundles formed a kind of cross-scale structure system. It was very similar to the natural hierarchical structures of feathers with rachis, barbs and barbules. Experimental results verified that the introduced hierarchical structures assuredly enhanced the interlayer toughening performance via substantial energy dissipation . When compared with original CFRP composites, the obtained CFRP composites with a feather-inspired interleaf exhibited significantly improved mechanical performance in Mode I and Mode II interlaminar fracture toughness . The proposed bio-inspired design philosophy and feasible fabrication method are anticipated to provide an industry-friendly way to effectively improve the mechanical performance of traditional CFRP composites and promote potential large-scale applications of bio-inspired CFRP composites in the broad engineering field. TOC: Inspired by natural hierarchical structure of feathers, a novel interleaf was designed and fabricated to enhance the mechanical performance of CFRP laminates, which provides a promising and versatile design strategy for the effective mechanical improvement of laminated composites.

Gender Disparities in the Access and Use of Urban Public Transport in Abuja, Nigeria

In Nigerian cities, many different urban mass transit modes convey people from one point to another. However, each gender faces unique challenges and has different experiences of accessing and using public transport systems in metropolitan cities such as Abuja, especially with its growing increase in infrastructural development and its being the seat of government. Most studies of urban mobility have been undertaken in developed countries; there is little evidence on this subject in developing countries such as Nigeria. This paper aims to assess gender disparities in the access and use of urban public transport in Abuja, Nigeria. This research explored individual experiences and challenges in accessing and using public transport services and making recommendations for improvements. A mixed design approach was used to collect primary data comprising qualitative and quantitative data to achieve the research goal. Qualitative data were collected by conducting a focus group discussion which aided the researcher in gathering the overall perceptions of public transport commuters in terms of structure, experience, and challenges, and was subsequently used in designing a questionnaire for the quantitative data. This research sought to fill a gap in knowledge of gender disparities in public transport use in Abuja, Nigeria, by looking into the structure of the public transport system and how it affects men and women differently. The research findings revealed that females use more public transport services than males, that demographic characteristics affected respondents’ choices of public transport use, and that trip-related characteristics played a vital role in their use of public transport. It further revealed that men are generally more satisfied and face fewer challenges than women in accessing and using public transport services. There is, therefore, a need to improve the system to cater for the different mobility needs of women and to develop policies and frameworks to regulate the delivery of public transport services in Nigeria.

RESOURCE SUPPLY AN ACCESSIBILITY OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES

The term “urban mass transit” generally refers to scheduled intra-city service on a fixed route in shared vehicles. Public transportation is an important contributing factor to urban sustainability. Effective transportation networks that incorporate public transit livable by easing commute and transportation needs and increasing accessibility. To assess public transportation accessibility in metropolitan networks, two indices are used: the supply level of urban public transportation facilities resource and the public transportation-private automobile traveling time ratio. As the research in the Wolaita sodo town region and the assessment system, an evaluation technique for urban public transportation facility resource supply is developed based on accessibility. Accessibility is a representative indicator for evaluating the supply of bus system. Traditional studies have evaluated the accessibility from different aspects. Considering the interaction among land use, bus timetable arrangement and individual factors, a more holistic accessibility measurement is proposed to combine static and dynamic characteristics from multisource traffic data. The objective is to highlight the main lessons learned and identify knowledge gaps to guide the design and evaluation of future transport investments. Moreover, studies looking at ways to improve the operational efficiency of systems and those seeking to promote behavioral changes in transport users offer great potential to generate learning that is useful for the public and private actors involved.

Analisis Manajemen Keselamatan dan Kesehatan Kerja pada Keadaan Darurat Kebakaran di Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Jakarta

The Jakarta Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) is an urban mass and fast transit transportation system based on electric rail, which is characterized by its ability to carry large volumes of passengers quickly. In its operational service activities, the Jakarta MRT can experience a fire emergency situation. Therefore, a fire emergency response system is needed as an effort of occupational safety and health management in preventing and overcoming fire emergency situations that may occur. This study aims to analyze the fire emergency response system in the Jakarta MRT. This type of research is a descriptive study with a qualitative approach. The data were collected through direct observation and organized online in-depth interviews involving 4 main informants and 2 triangulation informants. The result of this study shows that the Jakarta MRT has a fire emergency response system that includes the fire emergency response policy, fire hazard identification, emergency response team, fire protection systems, life-saving facilities, fire emergency response training, emergency communications, fire safety inspection, fire emergency response procedure, investigation and report, and fire safety audit. However, there are still fire protection systems at the station and in the train that are not available and not in accordance with the applicable standards such as the fire control center, fire elevator, yard hydrant, sprinklers, fire extinguishers, smoke control system, firefighter access, and emergency safety hammer. The researcher suggests the Jakarta MRT provide fire protection systems that are not yet available and adjust the fire protection systems in accordance with applicable standards of laws and regulations.

Indicator for Assessing Availability of Rolling Stock for Public Urban Passenger Transport

The objective of the article is to develop and to substantiate adequacy of the proposed indicator for assessing availability of rolling stock for urban mass transit or urban passenger transport (UPT). As such an indicator, it is recommended to use a calculated indicator: a conventional one-hundred-seat vehicle. The currently used indicators characterising provision of UPT with vehicles, consider only the physical number of the latter. This does not provide an assessment of carrying capacity of UPT, considering the existing operating conditions (real operating speeds on the routes of UPT, the existing level of the coefficient of the fleet being used on the routes as compared to the total number of fleet units, etc.). The proposed indicator of availability of the rolling stock considers not only the natural number of vehicles, but also their passenger capacity, the indicated significant technical and operational indicators of the vehicle fleet. The basis for assessing the carrying capacity of the rolling stock fleet is a conventional one-hundred-seat bus, which performs transportation on routes with an average operating speed. For real buses, this basic unit is adjusted in accordance with real travel speeds and the prevailing values of technical and operational indicators. A similar adjustment is performed for real trolleybuses and tram cars, which makes it possible to level the operational differences in the rolling stock of various types of UPT to compare them in terms of carrying capacity.The methodology used in preparation of the article is based on the integrated use of scientific knowledge in the fields of applied science on operation of transport, statistics (statistical observation and accounting of the work of UPT), a comparative analysis of indicators used in various industries, in particular, in agriculture to assess the level of provision with the main production vehicles (conventional tractor), benchmarking research and development of Russian and foreign authors on the problem of improving operation of UPT.The indicator is intended for use in development and assessment of the level of implementation of programs for development of UPT and the urban environment, analysis of the quality of transport planning and services provided to passengers, comparisons of provision with vehicles in different cities.