Urban Public Transit Systems Research Articles

Delayed effects of air pollution on public bike-sharing system use in Seoul, South Korea: A time series analysis

Background:As a complementary means to urban public transit systems, public bike-sharing provides a green and active mode of sustainable mobility, while reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and promoting health. There has been increasing interest in factors affecting bike-sharing usage, but little is known about the effect of ambient air pollution. Method:To assess the short-term impact of daily exposure to multiple air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and O3) on the public bike-sharing system (PBS) usage in Seoul, South Korea (2018–2021), we applied a quasi-Poisson generalized linear model combined with a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM). The model was adjusted for day of the week, holiday, temperature, relative humidity, and long-term trend. We also conducted stratification analyses to examine the potential effect modification by age group, seasonality, and COVID-19. Results:We found that there was a negative association between daily ambient air pollution and the PBS usage level at a single lag day 1 (i.e., air quality a day before the event) across all four pollutants. Our results suggest that days with high levels of air pollutants (at 95th percentile) are associated with a 0.91% (0.86% to 0.96%) for PM2.5, 0.89% (0.85% to 0.94%) for PM10, 0.87% (0.82% to 0.91%) for O3, and 0.92% (0.87% to 0.98%) for NO2, reduction in cycling behavior in the next day compared to days with low levels of pollutants (at 25th percentile). No evidence of effect modification was found by seasonality, age nor the COVID-19 pandemic for any of the four pollutants. Conclusions:Our findings suggest that high concentrations of ambient air pollution are associated with decreased rates of PBS usage on the subsequent day regardless of the type of air pollutant measured.

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.

Identification of key performance indicators using hybrid COPRAS-TOPSIS for urban public transit systems by evaluating with AHP and FAHP

Identification of key performance indicators using hybrid COPRAS-TOPSIS for urban public transit systems by evaluating with AHP and FAHP

Challenge and Prospect of High-speed Rail Radar Communication Integration Technologies

Radar plays an important role in urban public transit system, so it is of great significance to ensure the safe operation of High-speed rail. Radar communication integration technology has the characteristics of high efficiency and low energy consumption, it can improve communication quality, speed up transmission efficiency and improve detection accuracy. Firstly, this paper introduces the running scene of High-speed rail, and puts forward that radar communication integration technology has a broad application space in High-speed rail. Then it introduces radar communication integration technology, and the research status, advantages and development prospects of radar communication integration technology based on linear frequency modulation（LFM）. Finally, it is proposed that obstacle detection technology is one of the difficulties to ensure the safe operation of High-speed rail. Radar integration technology can be effectively applied to train obstacle detection, which is an important technical support for improving service quality and speeding up the intelligent construction of High-speed rail in the future.

Methodology to Detect Bus Stop Influence Zones Utilizing Facebook Prophet Changepoint Detection Method

Travel time of buses, a major part of the urban public transit system, is affected by various factors and foremost are the bus stops. In addition to the dwell time at the stop, the deceleration and acceleration zones reduce average speed, particularly in mixed traffic, and increase travel time. Several approaches are used in estimating the link-based travel time of public transit systems in transportation planning, but Bus Stop Influence Zones (BSIZs) are ignored. Moreover, fuel consumption and pollutant emissions increase in BSIZs, and this demonstrates the importance of BSIZs in measuring the performance of public transit systems as well as planning. Data obtained from the Automatic Vehicle Location system was used and visualized on Geographic Information System and data preprocessing steps were performed. Finally, changepoint detection method of Facebook Prophet (FBP-CDM) was exploited to identify changepoints in location-speed data on the selected route. Results were validated with real-life data and expert opinion, and then compared with the findings acquired by the K-means clustering. Based on the conclusions, FBP-CDM was found quite effective in detecting and predicting BSIZs accurately and the proposed methodology is useful for studies in transportation planning and operations.

A New Route Choice Model for Urban Public Transit with Headway-based Service

A new approach to create the model of individual behavior in urban public transit systems with headway-based service that is built on the same principles of rational decision making as discrete choice models is presented. To describe a passenger's decision-making, the attractiveness function which reflects the difference between trip results and costs was used. The attractiveness of the transit route was determined by solving the system of Fredholm's integral equations based on observed frequencies of choosing the alternative routes by each individual. The frequencies were determined based on multi-day survey results and range between 0 and 1 but equal neither 0 nor 1. To estimate the significance level of the attractiveness function, the regression analysis was used and the accuracy of the choice probability forecast was evaluated. Computation of model coefficients was carried out based on the parameters of home-based work trips obtained via the travel survey that was conducted in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Comparative Appraisal of Metro Stations in Delhi Using Data Envelopment Analysis in a Multimodal Context

Urban public transit is a critical component for sustainable urban development and is crucial to multisector expansion of a developing economy. Continuous monitoring of infrastructure performance and assessment of its effectiveness are required to continually improve service quality. The urban agglomeration of Delhi, India, was studied for the efficacy of its multimodal urban public transit system. The toolkit used was Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a linear optimization technique that estimates relative efficiencies of its decision making units (DMUs) for a multitude of inputs and outputs. The study area includes the Red and Yellow lines of the Delhi Metro network. Commuter-based questionnaires were used to collect 1,328 valid responses about demographic, travel time, and quality perception parameters, which were analyzed, and relative rankings of the DMUs were evaluated. The efficiency was analyzed according to the Red and Yellow lines divided into seven corridor segments and individual stations. Results revealed efficiency scores and inefficiency slacks for which improvement strategies are proposed.

Analyze development potential in affected areas adjacent to urban public transit systems. Case study in the stations of Kim Ma and Van Phuc 2 (BRT Line No.1)

The Hanoi authority has been promoting the construction and completion of the Urban Mass Rapid Transit (UMRT) system, both BRT and urban railway. The idea of land value capture for economic development in areas around public transport systems is quite popular around the world. This is considered an effective approach to urban development planning in the big cities. The 3V framework is a holistic approach used to analyze the development potentials of the affected areas by transit stations. This method mentions 3 value groups composed of Node-value, Place-value, and Market-value which are defined under dimensions. The tools utilized to calculate these dimensions are GIS, mapping and surveying. Two stations on BRT line 1, Kim Ma and Van Phuc 2 were selected to study. The results of study showed that (1) there is a relation between spatial attributes, transport characteristics, market conditions and the development potentials; (2) having the advantages and obstacles to development in the affected areas around public transit transport. These results hopefully are the basis for further studies in other stations with the support of more credibly quantitative tools such as computer software and statistical methods.

Public transit travel choice in the post COVID-19 pandemic era: An application of the extended Theory of Planned behavior

It is widely reported that the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced ridership and brought severe challenges to urban public transit systems in many countries. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual people’s choice of public transit may continue for a while after the peak of the crisis. However, there is insufficient detailed knowledge of how individuals respond in the post-pandemic context and make choices on public transit travel. This paper contributes fresh evidence for this by looking at Beijing as a case. The theoretical framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior is used to model individuals’ public transit travel choice-making processes along with three additional constructs representing the impact of the pandemic and the nature of urban mobility behaviors, namely perceived knowledge of COVID-19, the psychological risks of COVID-19, and travel habits. Structural equation modeling is used in model estimation. We point out that there may be potential differences between the effects and meanings of model constructs in the post-pandemic context and in normal daily context. Interestingly, despite the higher psychological risk’s negative effects, higher perceived knowledge of COVID-19 has significantly positive effects on people’s decision-making processes. A strong pre-pandemic personal habit of traveling by public transit has significant and positive effects on post-pandemic intention and perceived behavioral control. Group comparisons show that “captive” transit users have higher psychological risk of COVID-19 than “choice” transit users, yet their transit use decisions are less influenced by it. Based on the modeling results, more behavioral experiments are needed to further inform efficient policy-making.

Impact of Unplanned Long-Term Service Disruptions on Urban Public Transit Systems

Impact of Unplanned Long-Term Service Disruptions on Urban Public Transit Systems

Topology analysis of Lanzhou public transport network based on double-layer complex network theory

The network topology is the basis of studying the overall performance and dynamic evolution mechanism of network. In regards to the study on the topology of multi-layer complex networks, the current studies fail to consider the heterogeneity of edges and nodes in multi-layer complex networks, and such methods are insufficient when they are used to analyze the static characteristics of topology. Therefore, this paper based on the theoretical basis of the multi-layer complex network, establishes a two-layer public transit complex network model where urban rail transit and bus transit cooperate with each other, and by optimizing this two-layer public transit complex network model, further proposes an integrated public transit network model. According to the method of analyzing the static statistical characteristics of complex networks, and considering the heterogeneity of nodes and edges in multi-layer network, this​ paper gives the evaluation indicators of static statistical characteristics of multi-layer public transit complex networks. Taking the two-layer public transit complex network structure in Lanzhou as an example, this paper finds out the main factors affecting its network stability and efficiency by analyzing the physical structure characteristics of this two-layer public transit complex network in Lanzhou where urban rail transit and bus transit cooperate with each other, and then puts forward the network optimization suggestions from the point of view of optimizing key nodes by using the method of identifying key nodes with centrality. In this study, the coupling among heterogeneous public transit network layers and the static structure characteristics of multi-layer public transit complex network are studied from the perspective of network structure, to assist the traffic management department in finding out the problems of the road network for the management and improvement of the performance and efficiency of the network. This has a profound influence on the development planning of urban public transit system.

Building Architecture of Intelligent Control System for Urban Rail Transit System

The increase in the volume of passenger transportation in megalopolises and large urban agglomerations is efficiently provided by the integration of urban public transit systems and city railways. Traffic management under those conditions requires creating intelligent centralised multi-level traffic control systems that implement the required indicators of quality, comfort, and traffic safety regarding passenger transportation. Besides, modern control systems contribute to traction power saving, are foundation and integral part of the systems of digitalisation of urban transit and the cities. Building systems solving the traffic planning and control tasks is implemented using algorithms based on the methods of artificial intelligence, principles of hierarchically structured centralised systems, opportunities provided by Big Data technology. Under those conditions it is necessary to consider growing requirements towards software as well as theoretical design and practical implementation of network organisation.This article discusses designing architecture and shaping requirements for developed applications and their integration with databases to create a centralised intelligent control system for the urban rail transit system (CICS URTS). The article proposes the original architecture of the network, routing of information flows and software of CICS URTS. The routing design is based on a fully connected network. This allows to significantly increase the network bandwidth and meet the requirements regarding information protection, since information flows are formed based on the same type of protocols, which prevents emergence of covert transmission channels. The implementation of the core using full connectivity allows, according to the tags of information flows, to pre-form the routes for exchange of information between servers and applications deployed in CICS URTS. The use of encrypted tags of information flows makes it much more difficult to carry out attacks and organise collection of information about the network structure.Platforms for development of intelligent control systems (ICS), which include CICS URTS, high computing power, data storage capacity and new frameworks are becoming more available for researchers and developers and allow rapid development of ICS. The article discusses the issues of interaction of applications with databases through a combination of several approaches used in the field of Big Data, substantiates combination of Internet of Things (IoT) methodology and microservice architecture. This combination will make it possible to single out business processes in the system and form streaming data processing requiring operational analysis by a human, which is shown by relevant examples.Thus, the objective of the article is to formalise the principles of organising data exchange between CICS URTS and automated control systems (ACS) of railway companies (in our case, using the example of JSC Russian Railways), URTS services providers, and city government bodies, implement the developed approaches into the architecture of CICS URTS and formalise principles of organisation of microservice architecture of CICS URTS software. The main research methods are graph theory, Big Data and IoT methods.

Souq Waqif Neighborhood as a Transit-Oriented Development

In a rapidly developing nation such as Qatar, the prime aspect of growth is directed toward delivering social, economic, and environmental coherence in its neighborhood development. Qatar's current fast economic growth and the physical transformation of its built environment compromises social and environmental aspects. However, if applied suitably, these transformations can enhance these compromised aspects while increasing economic prosperity. Such transformations include major urban public transit systems currently under construction for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2030 Qatar National Vision (QNV-2030), which aims to connect the center of Doha to several megaprojects and transit villages around major metro stations. The main goal of projects such as the Doha Metro System is to reduce the number of vehicles on the road networks while providing a “stress-free” transition experience. Therefore, the pursuit of transit-oriented developments (TODs), as part of an integrated transportation and land use strategy, will aid in the revitalization of urban neighborhoods in terms of both social and environmental aspects, while allowing for economic prosperity. The main challenge for urban planners is to design the metro stations and accompanying facilities to be well integrated into the urban context of their surroundings, thus reducing traffic through the design of mixed-use, compact transit villages. This study aims to explore the extent to which the new metro station can be interconnected with the spatial form of the built environment of the Souq Waqif neighborhood. This research study argues that efficient integration of land use with balanced transportation will contribute to creating a more livable environment with reduced automobile dependence while aiding the economic context. The research design includes qualitative data based on theoretical studies to assess the principles of TODs and the extent of further implementations that can be employed for the Souq neighborhood to become a TOD.

Disruption Recovery for Urban Public Tram System: An Analysis of Replacement Service Selection

Disruption recovery is an imperative task for the tram system, which has caused widespread concerns in the public transport area. In this paper, how to provide replacement services for stranded passengers during short-term unplanned events has been investigated. A decision support tool for the tram company to dispatch appropriate replacement services by taxis or buses has been proposed. First, critical factors for disruption recovery decisions are identified as commuters' behaviors, recovery cost, and service level. Then, critical factors are model as replacement service selection strategies among bus, taxi, and bus-taxi hybrid. Finally, numerical analyses are conducted to shed light on key variables affecting the tram company's benefit function as well as replacement service decisions. The numerical analyses provide immediate managerial implications. The proposed method can be easily extended to real-time disruption recovery for urban public transit system by capturing passenger patterns and vehicle status through big data technologies.

Design and Simulation of Urban Variable-route Bus

As a new mode of public transport service, variable-route bus service can further improve the service quality of urban public transit system, and will become an important part of integrated urban comprehensive public transit system. Therefore, this paper studies the operation scheduling model of variable-route bus, aiming at improving the service level of public transport and reducing the operating cost. Based on the theoretical research, the service area maximum width of variable-route bus is obtained according to the relationship between the system slack time and the travel time. Then a two-stage vehicle scheduling model which comprehensively considers the reservation demand and the dynamic real-time demand is proposed. The operation mode conversion model of variable-route bus and the conventional bus are further established, which provides powerful guarantee for the application of variable-route bus service. Finally, by designing simulation experiment, the comparison of relevant operation service parameters between variable-route bus and conventional bus is conducted. This paper aims to study the influence of variable-route bus to operation and scheduling, and provides a theoretical basis for the promotion and application of variable-route bus in China.

Understanding Spatio-Temporal Characteristics of Urban Travel Demand Based on the Combination of GWR and GLM

Taxis are an important part of the urban public transit system. Understanding the spatio-temporal variations of taxi travel demand is essential for exploring urban mobility and patterns. The purpose of this study is to use the taxi Global Positioning System (GPS) trajectories collected in New York City to investigate the spatio-temporal characteristic of travel demand and the underlying affecting variables. We analyze the spatial distribution of travel demand in different areas by extracting the locations of pick-ups. The geographically weighted regression (GWR) method is used to capture the spatial heterogeneity in travel demand in different zones, and the generalized linear model (GLM) is applied to further identify key factors affecting travel demand. The results suggest that most taxi trips are concentrated in a fraction of the geographical area. Variables including road density, subway accessibility, Uber vehicle, point of interests (POIs), commercial area, taxi-related accident and commuting time have significant effects on travel demand, but the effects vary from positive to negative across the different zones of the city on weekdays and the weekend. The findings will be helpful to analyze the patterns of urban travel demand, improve efficiency of taxi companies and provide valuable strategies for related polices and managements.

Decision-Aiding Transit-Tracker Methodology for Bus Scheduling Using Real Time Information to Ameliorate Traffic Congestion in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal

The bustling urban environment of Kathmandu Valley is characterized by unprecedented traffic congestion. Due to its bowel-shaped geography, gusty winds rarely remove vehicular emissions from the urban atmosphere, making Kathmandu one of Asia’s most polluted cities, 100th city in global pollution index. Over 500,000 vehicles travel daily on over 1600 km of roads covering over 675 sq·km urban area. Thousands of low occupancy vehicles are added each year to the urban public transit system (UPTS). Kathmandu faces worse and unreliable traffic from the current UPTS mostly with low occupancy vehicles. Around 4.5 million urban denizens, both permanent and transient residents, suffer from unreliable UPTS. Traffic rules and daily transportation schedules are rarely followed, resulting in frequent traffic jams and accidents. Once experienced, visitors try avoiding the UPTS. Tourism, annually contributing almost 8 percent to Nepal’s total annual GDP, also suffers from poor UPTS. Planners, policy makers, and politicians (P-actors) are seeking ways to improve sustainable UPTS to ameliorate stresses to family life and working hours for the urban majority. Aiming to help P-actors, we propose a transit-tracker model that uses real time information (RTI) in mobile phones and web-embedded devices to inform travelers, drivers, government authorities, and sub-admins. We argue that unreliability in the UPTS motivates urban elites to add more low occupancy vehicles, which in turn reduces already shrunken urban spaces and contributes more per capita air pollution than multi-occupancy vehicles. Since mobile and smart phones are capable of processing RTI to generate meaningful information and inform various stakeholders in communicable languages, we argue that replacing low occupancy vehicles with multi-occupancy buses within a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, on main roads with fixed schedules and strict traffic rules, would not only improve UPTS, but also reduce pollution in the Kathmandu Valley.

The urban regeneration of west-bay, business district of Doha (State of Qatar): A transit-oriented development enhancing livability

Doha, the capital of the State of Qatar, has faced enormous economic growth and rapid urban transformation over the last few decades. More recently, this has been accentuated by the construction of major urban public transit systems in the State and a desire to implement the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) model in new developments and/or urban regeneration projects along the new ‘Doha Metro’ rail network. A TOD is a mixed-use area planned to maximize access to public transport and encourage transit ridership. Scholars argue that TODs encourage sustainable urbanism via enhancement of livability by better integrating transportation and land-use strategies in urban form. This makes it critical to better understand the challenges and benefits that TODs offer for models of urbanism in formulating strategies and guidelines for the planning of sustainable settlements. This study focuses on one major new transit hubs in Qatar: West Bay, the waterfront business district of Doha, and its surrounding neighborhood. The aim of the research study is to evaluate the extent to which the new West Bay TOD will impact livability in the district and surrounding neighborhood. The findings provide a guide for the design and implementation of the TOD model in other districts of Doha to enhance livability for residents and citizens.

Comparative empirical analysis of flow-weighted transit route networks in R-space and evolution modeling

Urban public transit system is a typical mixed complex network with dynamic flow, and its evolution should be a process coupling topological structure with flow dynamics, which has received little attention. This paper presents the R-space to make a comparative empirical analysis on Beijing’s flow-weighted transit route network (TRN) and we found that both the Beijing’s TRNs in the year of 2011 and 2015 exhibit the scale-free properties. As such, we propose an evolution model driven by flow to simulate the development of TRNs with consideration of the passengers’ dynamical behaviors triggered by topological change. The model simulates that the evolution of TRN is an iterative process. At each time step, a certain number of new routes are generated driven by travel demands, which leads to dynamical evolution of new routes’ flow and triggers perturbation in nearby routes that will further impact the next round of opening new routes. We present the theoretical analysis based on the mean-field theory, as well as the numerical simulation for this model. The results obtained agree well with our empirical analysis results, which indicate that our model can simulate the TRN evolution with scale-free properties for distributions of node’s strength and degree. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the global evolutional mechanism of transit network that will be used to exploit planning and design strategies for real TRNs.

To Enhance Equity in Transportation Services by Providing Dial-a-ride System

This study is trying to give the top concern to the vulnerable people from transportation point of view. The very reason to initiate dial-a-ride system for the vulnerable group is to enhance the equity in transportation service. Dial-a-ride is a type of transportation service in paratransit system which consists of reservation, specialized vehicle delivery, professional care and other relative services for the vulnerable people. The vulnerable groups in Beijing are quite large but the existing public transit can’t come up with good services for them. Therefore this paper attempts to explore the build-up of dial-a-ride service system for disable people from the following five aspects: budget, system planning, training for operators, policy and publicity. It is our responsibility to make the vulnerable group enjoy the convenient services provided by civilized society. Apart from that the group can be treated equally in their choice of travel means. It is believed that dial-a-ride will become a part of our urban public transit systems and function as a demand-response system for fulfilling the travel desire of vulnerable group.