Modeling traveler mode choice behavior of a new high-speed rail corridor in China

This study examines mode choice behavior for intercity business and personal/recreational trips. It uses multinomial logit and nested logit methods to analyze revealed preference data provided by travelers along the Yong-Tai-Wen multimodal corridor in Zhejiang, China. Income levels are found to be positively correlated with mode share increases for high-speed rail (HSR), expressway-based bus, and auto modes, while travel time and trip costs are negatively correlated with modal shift. Longer distance trips trigger modal shifts to HSR services but prevent modal shift to expressway-based auto use due to escalation of fuel cost and toll charges. Travelers are less elastic in their travel time and cost for trips by nonexpressway-based auto use modes. The magnitude of elasticity for travel time is higher than trip costs for business trips and lower for personal/recreational trips. The study provides some policy suggestions for transportation planners and decision-makers.     

Elderly travel frequencies and transport mode choices in Greater Rotterdam,the Netherlands

Demographic ageing is a key societal challenge in Europe as well as in many other western and non-western societies. A crucial dimension concerns elderly daily mobility patterns. While still partaking fewer and shorter trips than younger generations, today’s elderly have been found increasingly (auto)mobile. Although the elderly benefit from the independence, freedom of movement, and social inclusion, concerns may rise regarding the environmental and accessibility impacts of this induced mobility. The present study adds to the expanding literature on elderly mobility, an integrated analysis of the effects of socio-demographic, health, trip, spatial and weather attributes on elderly mobility. Utilizing travel diary data for Greater Rotterdam, The Netherlands, trip frequencies and transport mode choices of the elderly are analysed by means of zero-inflated negative binomial models as well as multinomial logit regression models, and contrasted to the non-elderly subpopulation to explore (dis)similarities. While the results show common determinants, the models also highlight important differences in the magnitude of the estimated coefficients and factors only influencing transport patterns for the elderly. Embedded in the context of an aging population, the empirical findings assist policy-makers and planners in several respects: For transportation plans and programs it is critical to recognize mobility needs of the elderly. As the seniors are becoming increasingly automobile, the results call for strategies to encourage older people to use more physically active and environmentally friendly transport modes such as public transport, walking and cycling.     

A comparison of the sustainability of public and private transportation systems: Study of the Greater Toronto Area

A macroscopic assessment of the impacts of private and public transportation systems on the sustainability of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is undertaken from economic, environmental and social perspectives. The methodology draws upon the urban metabolism and sustainability indicators approaches to assessing urban sustainability, but compares modes in terms of passenger-kms. In assessing the economic sustainability of a city, transportation should be recognized as a product, a driver and a cost. In 1993, the traded costs of automobile use in the GTA were approximately balanced by the value of the automobile parts and assembly industry. But local transit costs 1/3 to 1/6 of the auto costs per person-km, in traded dollars, mainly because local labour is the primary cost.Public transportation is more sustainable from an environmental perspective. Automobile emissions are a major contributor to air pollution, which is a serious contemporary environmental health problem in Toronto. Public transportation modes are less energy intensive (including indirect energy consumption) and produce CO₂ at an order of magnitude lower, although these benefits are partially undermined by under-utilization of transit capacity and the source of electricity generation.The social benefits of automobile use are likely more significant than costs in determining GTA residents' preferential mode choice. The speed and access of auto use provide important economic benefits, e.g. relating to employment and product choice. Nevertheless, offsetting the service attributes of private transportation are large social costs in terms of accidents. The costs of automobile insurance provide one tangible measure of such negative impacts.In order to improve the sustainability of the GTA, innovative approaches are required for improving the performance level of public transportation or substantially reducing the need for the service level provided by automobiles. Efforts such as greater integration of bicycles with public transit, or construction of light-rail systems in wide roadways, might be considered. But to be sustainable overall, a transportation system has to be flexible and adaptable and so must combine a mixture of modes.     

Weather,transport mode choices and emotional travel experiences

With climate change high on the political agenda, weather has emerged as an important issue in travel behavioural research and urban planning. While various studies demonstrate profound effects of weather on travel behaviours, limited attention has been paid to subjective weather experiences and the psychological mechanisms that may (partially) underlie these effects. This paper integrates theoretical insights on outdoor thermal comfort, weather perceptions and emotional experiences in the context of travel behaviour. Drawing on unique panel travel diary data for 945 Greater Rotterdam respondents (The Netherlands), this paper aims to investigate how and to what extent weather conditions affect transport mode choices, outdoor thermal perceptions and emotional travel experiences. Our findings point out that observed dry, calm, sunny and warm but not too hot weather conditions stimulate cycling over other transport modes and – via mechanisms of thermal and mechanical comfort – lead to more pleasant emotions during travel. Overall, public transport users have less pleasant emotional experiences than users of other transport modes, while active mode users appear most weather sensitive. The theoretical contributions and empirical findings are discussed in the context of climate change and climate-sensitive urban planning.     

Short trips: An opportunity for reducing mobile-source emissions?

This paper examines how conversion of automobile trips of less than 3 miles to other transportation modes reduces emissions. Short trips contribute disproportionately to emissions because of cold starts. An analysis is conducted of short-trip behavior across the US using the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey. The data is used to develop likely scenarios of mode conversions for short trips, which are then applied to estimate emission savings using MOBILE6 cold start and running emission factors for volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. The results suggest that reducing short auto trips would modestly reduce mobile source air pollution, but emission reductions are high compared to most federally-funded surface transportation interventions aimed at improving air quality. Enhanced the community pedestrian environment to encourage short trip mode conversion also produces co-benefits such as increased physical activity and subsequent reductions in chronic diseases.     

Impact assessment of extreme weather events on transport networks: A data-driven approach

The present paper presents a data-driven method for assessing the resilience of the European passenger transport network during extreme weather events. The method aims to fill in the gap of current research efforts regarding the quantification of impacts attributed to climate change and the identification of substitutability opportunities between transport modes in case of extreme weather events (EWE). The proposed method consists of three steps concerning the probability estimation of an EWE occurring within a transportation network, the assessment of its impacts and the passengers’ flow shift between various transport modes. A mathematical formulation for the proposed data-driven method is provided and applied in an indicative European small-scale network, in order to assess the impacts of EWE on modal choice. Results are expressed in passenger differentiated flows and the paper concludes with future research steps and directions.     

Design charts for estimating transportation planning statistics from area population

Utilizing data collected for urban transportation studies in Ontario, regression analysis has been used to establish relationships between the daily number of person trips in an urban area and the area population. In particular the number of trips by auto drivers, auto passengers and mass transit riders have been investigated. Further, auto driver trips have been stratified into the following destination trip purposes: return home, work and related business, shopping, social-recreational and miscellaneous. The results of this analysis have been used to prepare a set of design charts. These charts are presented graphically and in the form of a nomogram. The accuracy of these charts has been investigated and found satisfactory for most planning purposes.     

Skateboarding for transportation: exploring the factors behind an unconventional mode choice among university skateboard commuters

Transportation - Efforts to promote non-motorized, active transportation modes typically focus on walking and bicycling. However, other self-propelled devices such as skateboards, roller skates,...     

Impacts of weather on public transport ridership: Results from mining data from different sources

The existing studies concerning the influence of weather on public transport have mainly focused on the impacts of average weather conditions on the aggregate ridership of public transit. Not much research has examined these impacts at disaggregate levels. This study aims to fill this gap by accounting for intra-day variations in weather as well as public transport ridership and investigating the effect of weather on the travel behavior of individual public transit users. We have collected smart card data for public transit and meteorological records from Shenzhen, China for the entire month of September 2014. The data allow us to establish association between the system-wide public transit ridership and weather condition on not only daily, but also hourly basis and for each metro station. In addition, with the detailed trip records of individual card holders, the travel pattern by public transit are constructed for card holders and this pattern is linked to the weather conditions he/she has experienced. Multivariate modeling approach is applied to analyze the influence of weather on public transit ridership and the travel behavior of regular transit users. Results show that some weather elements have more influence than others on public transportation. Metro stations located in urban areas are more vulnerable to outdoor weather in regard to ridership. Regular transit users are found to be rather resilient to changes in weather conditions. Findings contribute to a more in-depth understanding of the relationship between everyday weather and public transit travels and also provide valuable information for short-term scheduling in transit management.     

Policy Simulation for New BRT and Area Pricing Alternatives Using an Opinion Survey in Jakarta

Abstract

An area pricing scheme for Jakarta, Indonesia, is currently under review as a transportation control measure along with the operation of new bus rapid transit (BRT) system. While this scheme may be effective for congestion reduction in the central business district (CBD), provision of alternative means of transportation for auto users that are ‘pushed-out’ is of great importance to obtain public acceptance. Hence, it is necessary to simulate simultaneously the area pricing scheme and the BRT development which may serve as an alternative for assumed ‘pushed-out’ auto users. Utilizing data from an opinion survey, this paper studies how BRT and auto ridership are likely to vary as a function of traveler and system attributes. Additionally, the study attempts to evaluate the way this new travel mode is distinguished from other existing conventional transportation alternatives in Jakarta. The survey data contains socioeconomic information of over 1000 respondents as well as details of to-work/school trips to the CBD including mode, travel cost, time, etc. Respondents were asked about their willingness to shift from their current mode to BRT to make the same travel for different BRT fare levels. Modeling efforts suggest that a mixed logit model performs better in explaining choice behavior. Therefore, this model was used for policy simulation. The simulation results brought about many implications as to the tested policies. While the developed models may be applied only to future BRT corridors in which the survey was conducted, they capture the key variables that are significant in explaining mode choice behavior and present great potential for practical use in policy simulation and analysis in a large metropolitan area of the developing world.     

An empirical analysis of freight transport traffic modes in Brazil, 1996–2012

This paper analyses the performance of freight transportation modes in Brazil – namely air, water, rail and road – from February 1996 to August 2012 by investigating their long memory properties using fractional integration and autoregressive models on monthly tonnage data. Two important features are analysed: the degree of dependence of transportation traffic across time and its seasonal structure over the period. Furthermore, the stability of parameters across the sample period is investigated, incorporating potential structural breaks in the data, which describe discontinuity in freight transportation traffic. Some policy implications are derived.     

Urban transportation in Chinese cities: An efficiency assessment

We use 2008 data for 34 Chinese cities to compare urban transportation systems. The results show stronger eastern and central cities focusing more on high capacity and less on sustainable modes of transportation, while western cities do the opposite. Chinese cities with more sustainable transportation are also more likely to have lower gross domestic product per capita, be smaller, are less urbanized and have higher bus usage. This model needs to change to align with China’s new policy priorities.     

Neighborhoods,cars, and commuting in New York City: A discrete choice approach

Cities around the world are trying out a multitude of transportation policy and investment alternatives with the aim of reducing car-induced externalities. However, without a solid understanding of how people make their transportation and residential location choices, it is hard to tell which of these policies and investments are really doing the job and which are wasting precious city resources. The focus of this paper is the determinants of car ownership and car use for commuting. Using survey data from 1997 to 1998 collected in New York City, this paper uses discrete choice econometrics to estimate a model of the choices of car ownership and commute mode while also modeling the related choice of residential location.The main story told by this analysis is that New Yorkers are more sensitive to changes in travel time than they are to changes in travel cost. The model predicts that the most effective ways to reduce both auto ownership and car commuting involve changing the relative travel times for cars and transit, making transit trips faster by increasing both the frequency and the speed of service and making auto trips slower – perhaps simply by allowing traffic congestion. Population density also appears to have a substantial effect on car ownership in New York.     

Influence of the weather on mode choice in corridors with time-varying congestion: a mixed data study

Studies that link human behaviour to the influence of weather have historically been conducted in such fields as tourism, marketing and leisure. In most studies that jointly examine weather and the mode of transport, only open-air transportation has been considered (for example, bicycle, motorcycle or walking). This focus, together with the habitual use of data collected with automatic devices and a lack of studies that analyse this issue using stated preference data, are the main reasons motivating this paper. This paper aims to analyse the influence of weather and the density of traffic on the choice of transport mode. A case study is conducted in an access/egress corridor located in the city of Barcelona (Spain). Two data sources were used: revealed preference and stated preference data. Modelling techniques using mixed data enabled the stronger features from both data sources to be captured. Finally, we discuss how the selection of different alternative specific constants in models estimated using mixed data could generate unrealistic forecasting results if environmental changes are expected in the actual market.     

Active travel as a pro-environmental behaviour: An integrated framework

A travel mode may be chosen due to its emotional appeal (affective motive) or to express social status (symbolic motive). Previous studies have overlooked the role of such motives in active mode use as pro-environmental behaviour. This study aims to examine the role of symbolic and affective motives, together with other significant theoretical perspectives, to explain the share of active modes of transport in trips to the university. It adds to the previous literature by considering the share of active modes of transport in different seasons. We collected a total of 316 completely filled questionnaires (response rate = 75.4 percent) from a cross-sectional self-administered survey in February 2019 in Trondheim, Norway. Among the psychological variables related to active mode use, only affective motives were found significant in both summer and winter. Environmental self-identity predicted both types of motives. No evidence suggested that personal environmental norms and attitudes towards transportation significantly explained active mode share, although car-related subjective norms reached significance. Furthermore, there was no evidence that environmental attitudes towards transportation had a mediating effect between motives and active mode use. Cycling journey time between place of residence and campus was found significant in the share of active modes of transport in both seasons. The results have important ramifications for the provision of relevant regulations and raising positive support from society to enhance the share of active modes of travel to the university.     

Winter problems on mountain passes – Implications for cost-benefit analysis

Cost-benefit analysis is a tool in government decision-making for determining the consequences of alternative uses of society’s scarce resources. Such a systematic process of comparing benefits and costs was adopted in early years for transportation projects and it has been the subject of much refining over the years. There are still some flaws, however, in the application of the method. In this article we have studied the impact of weather conditions on traffic speed on low traffic roads often exposed to adverse weather. This is an issue not currently considered in the cost-benefit analysis of road projects. By using two analytical approaches—structural equation modelling and classification and regression tree analysis—the impact of the weather indicators temperature, wind speed, and precipitation on traffic speed has been quantified. The data relates to three winter months on the European Route 6 road over the mountain pass Saltfjellet in Norway. Increase in wind speed, increase in precipitation and temperatures around freezing point all caused significant decrease in traffic speed in the case studied. If actions were taken to reduce the impact of adverse weather on traffic (e.g. by building a tunnel through the mountain) this study indicates that the road users would gain a total benefit of approximately 2,348,000 NOK (282,000 EUR) each winter at Saltfjellet if all the weather related benefits were included. We argue that this is a significant number that is highly relevant to include in CBAs. This applies both to the CBAs of new transportation projects as well as when resources are allocated for operation, maintenance, and monitoring of the existing transport systems. Including the weather related benefits would improve the application of CBA as a decision-making tool for policy makers.     

The design of capacitated intermodal hub networks with different vehicle types

In this study, we allow using alternative transportation modes and different types of vehicles in the hub networks to be designed. The aim of the problem is to determine the locations and capacities of hubs, which transportation modes to serve at hubs, allocation of non-hub nodes to hubs, and the number of vehicles of each type to operate on the hub network to route the demand between origin-destination pairs with minimum total cost. Total cost includes fixed costs of establishing hubs with different capacities, purchasing and operational costs of vehicles, transportation costs, and material handling costs. A mixed-integer programming model is developed and a variable neighborhood search algorithm is proposed for the solution of this problem. The heuristic algorithm is tested on instances from the Turkish network and CAB data set. Extensive computational analyzes are conducted in order to observe the effects of changes in various problem parameters on the resulting hub networks.     

Dynamic Modal Accessibility Gap: Measurement and Application Using Travel Routes Data

Accessibility is a key concept in transportation research and an important indicator of people’s quality of life. With the development of big data analytics, dynamic accessibility that captures the temporal variations of accessibility becomes an important research focus. Few prior studies focus on comparative measures of dynamic accessibility to Points of Interest (POIs) by alternative travel modes. To fill this research gap, we propose a new index called dynamic modal accessibility gap (DMAG), which draws upon available data on residents’ real travel routes using different travel modes, as well as the data on POIs. We study the DMAG in the real-travel covered area, assuming POIs are only useful if it is within someone’s real-travel covered area. We then apply this DMAG methodology to Shanghai’s central city and peripheral area. In both cases, we measure the accessibility for public and private travel modes. As an example, one-week taxi GPS and metro smart card data, and POIs data are used to generate the DMAG index for 30-minute and 60-minute trip durations for weekdays and holidays. Results show that DMAG can reflect the pattern of temporal variations. The proposed DMAG analytical framework, which can be applied at both the user and the system levels, can support urban and transportation planning, and promote social equity and livability.     

An analytical model to conduct a person-based evaluation of transit preferential treatments on signalized arterials

The complexities of urban transportation networks where multiple modes with different characteristics and needs travel in combination with constraints on space and funding make the sustainable management of these systems a challenge. In order to improve transit service, space (e.g., dedicated bus lanes) and time (e.g., transit signal priority strategies) Transit Preferential Treatments (TPT) are deployed to improve transit operations. The objective of this paper is to develop an analytical model that allows for a person-based evaluation of alternative TPTs when considered individually and in combination. In particular, the analytical model is developed to assess person delay and person discharge flow at any intersection that is part of a signalized arterial, where auto arrivals are in platoons. The performance of TPTs is evaluated using both the analytical model and through microsimulation tests on two intersections of San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, CA. Space TPTs such as dedicated bus lanes and queue jumper lanes are beneficial in reducing bus person delay when provided in addition to the existing lanes; however, the effectiveness of time TPTs such as green extension depends on the level of auto demand in combination with signal settings. Changes in person discharge flow are not significant for any of the treatments tested with the exception of the bus lane substitution with and without green extension, which led to a significant decrease in person discharge flow. Increased bus frequency increases the effectiveness of transit signal priority in reducing total and bus person delay. The analytical model results produce ranking outcomes that are comparable with the microsimulation ones and therefore, the model may be used for a quantitative evaluation of TPTs without the need for data intensive and time consuming calibration efforts required for microsimulation models. The developed model can be used to guide infrastructure and investment decisions on where such TPTs should be implemented and under what conditions space TPTs should be combined with time TPTs to improve person mobility.