Reduced dwell times resulting from train–platform improvements: the costs and benefits of improving passenger accessibility to metro trains

Abstract

This paper examines whether a dwell time reduction on a high-intensity metro service, as a result of a series of accessibility enhancements, can contribute to an increased level of service and accessible public transport for passengers together with a reduction in costs for the operator. Actual train operation data were collected by on-site observations and from London Underground Ltd. A simple simulation is built to represent the effect on the overall cycle times of trains if certain parameters (e.g. dwell time) are changed. Four models are developed, concerning: (1) step height between train and platform, (2) an assumption of passenger service time to be no longer than 20 s, (3) door width and (4) the combination of step height and door width. From the application of the models it appears that the fourth model provides the highest reduction in dwell time and diminishes the overall cycle times of trains. However, it is the most expensive to implement as it requires work to raise platforms and the purchase of new rolling stock.     

Planning and Evaluation of Passenger Ferry Service in Hong Kong

A predominant observation in Hong Kong is the continuous loss in ferry patronage. There are two main reasons for this: poor level-of-service and better competitors. New roads, bridges, and tunnels are serving the buses, and to some extent the railways; whereas the investment in ferry terminals is relatively at a lower level. On the one hand, there is no need to promote the ferries in a free market environment; but on the other hand, the ferries have the best safety record, can only relieve some traffic congestion and need water access that is one of the characteristics of Hong Kong. The goal of this paper is to design a planning approach combined with an evaluation procedure on how to make the best use of the existing water and pier resources in Hong Kong through the provision of commercially viable ferry services. The approach used covers the impact of future developments planning up to 2006 comprising all public transport modes in Hong Kong (heavy rail, metro, bus, and ferry). The planning tool is based on a newly developed multi-objective evaluation method in order to assess the ferry routes with scientific, practical, and simplified analyses for future use. This assessment is applied to the existing ferry routes and candidate routes and can also be carried out on an individual route basis or on a given set of routes. The objective functions set forth analytically in the evaluation method take into account the interests of the three participants: the passengers, the operators and the government. The proposed ferry network design formulation and the suggested new ferry routes will have a positive impact on changing the ferry system’s image in Hong Kong.     

What determines rail transit passenger volume? Implications for transit oriented development planning

Transit oriented development (TOD) has been an important topic for urban transportation planning research and practice. This paper is aimed at empirically examining the effect of rail transit station-based TOD on daily station passenger volume. Using integrated circuit (IC) card data on metro passenger volumes and cellular signaling data on the spatial distribution of human activities in Shanghai, the research identifies variations in ridership among rail transit stations. Then, regression analysis is performed using passenger volume in each station as the dependent variable. Explanatory variables include station area employment and population, residents’ commuting distances, metro network accessibility, status as interchange station, and coupling with commercial activity centers. The main findings are: (1) Passenger volume is positively associated with employment density and residents’ commuting distance around station; (2) stations with earlier opening dates and serving as transfer nodes tend to have positive association with passenger volumes; (3) metro stations better integrated with nearby commercial development tend to have larger passenger volumes. Several implications are drawn for TOD planning: (1) TOD planning should be integrated with rail transit network planning; (2) location of metro stations should be coupled with commercial development; (3) high employment densities should be especially encouraged as a key TOD feature; and (4) interchange stations should be more strategically positioned in the planning for rail transit network.     

Design and implementation of efficient transit networks: Procedure, case study and validity test

This paper presents and tests a method to design high-performance transit networks. The method produces conceptual plans for geometric idealizations of a particular city that are later adapted to the real conditions. These conceptual plans are generalizations of the hybrid network concept proposed in Daganzo (2010). The best plan for a specific application is chosen via optimization. The objective function is composed of analytic formulae for a concept’s agency cost and user level of service. These formulae include as parameters key demand-side attributes of the city, assumed to be rectangular, and supply-side attributes of the transit technology. They also include as decision variables the system’s line and stop spacings, the degree to which it focuses passenger trips on the city center, and the service headway. These decision variables are sufficient to define an idealized geometric layout of the system and an operating plan. This layout-operating plan is then used as a design target when developing the real, detailed master plan. Ultimately, the latter is simulated to obtain more accurate cost and level of service estimates.This process has been applied to design a high performance bus (HPB) network for Barcelona (Spain). The idealized solution for Barcelona includes 182 km of one-way infrastructure, uses 250 vehicles and costs 42,489 €/h to build and run. These figures only amount to about one third of the agency resources and cost currently used to provide bus service. A detailed design that resembles this target and conforms to the peculiarities of the city is also presented and simulated. The agency cost and user level of service metrics of the simulated system differ from those of the idealized model by less than 10%. Although the designed and simulated HPB systems provide sub-optimal spatial coverage because Barcelona lacks suitable streets, the level of service is good. Simulations suggest that if the proposed system was implemented side-by-side with the current one, it would capture most of the demand.     

Comparing static and dynamic threshold based control strategies

This research extends a static threshold based control strategy used to control headway variation to a dynamic threshold based control strategy. In the static strategy, buses are controlled by setting a threshold value that holds buses at a control point for a certain amount of time before allowing the bus to continue along the route. The threshold remains constant each time the bus stops at the control point. The dynamic strategy involves the same principle of holding buses at a bus stop; however, a different threshold value is chosen each time the bus holds at a control point. The results indicate that in cases where the static threshold is set equal to the scheduled headway, very low headway variation and passenger system times result; however, passengers on board the bus are penalized by extra delay on the bus while waiting at the control point. The dynamic strategy reduces the penalty to passengers delayed on-board the bus at a control point at the expense of a slight increase in overall passenger system time.The results indicate that in most cases, the tradeoff of the slight increase in waiting time for the significant decrease in on-board delay penalty makes the dynamic strategy an acceptable choice.     

Improving the forecasting accuracy of air passenger and air cargo demand: the application of back-propagation neural networks

This study employs back-propagation neural networks (BPN) to improve the forecasting accuracy of air passenger and air cargo demand from Japan to Taiwan. The factors which influence air passenger and air cargo demand are identified, evaluated and analysed in detail. The results reveal that some factors influence both passenger and cargo demand, and the others only one of them. The forecasting accuracy of air passenger and air cargo demand has been improved efficiently by the proposed procedure to evaluate input variables. The established model improves dramatically the forecasting accuracy of air passenger demand with an extremely low mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 0.34% and 7.74% for air cargo demand.     

Forecasting the short-term metro passenger flow with empirical mode decomposition and neural networks

Short-term passenger flow forecasting is a vital component of transportation systems. The forecasting results can be applied to support transportation system management such as operation planning, and station passenger crowd regulation planning. In this paper, a hybrid EMD-BPN forecasting approach which combines empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and back-propagation neural networks (BPN) is developed to predict the short-term passenger flow in metro systems. There are three stages in the EMD-BPN forecasting approach. The first stage (EMD Stage) decomposes the short-term passenger flow series data into a number of intrinsic mode function (IMF) components. The second stage (Component Identification Stage) identifies the meaningful IMFs as inputs for BPN. The third stage (BPN Stage) applies BPN to perform the passenger flow forecasting. The historical passenger flow data, the extracted EMD components and temporal factors (i.e., the day of the week, the time period of the day, and weekday or weekend) are taken as inputs in the third stage. The experimental results indicate that the proposed hybrid EMD-BPN approach performs well and stably in forecasting the short-term metro passenger flow.     

An application-oriented model of passenger waiting time based on bus departure time intervals

This paper develops an application-oriented model to estimate waiting times as a function of bus departure time intervals. Bus stops are classified into Type A and B depending on whether they are connected with urban rail transit systems. Distributions of passenger arrival rates are analyzed based on field data for Beijing. The results indicate that the best fits for the distribution of passenger arrival rates for Type A and B bus stops are the lognormal distribution and gamma distribution, respectively. By analyzing relationships between passenger arrival rates and bus departure time intervals, it is demonstrated that parameters of the passenger arrival rate distribution can be expressed by the average and coefficient of variation of bus departure time intervals in functional relationships. The validation shows that the model provides a reliable estimation of the average passenger waiting time based on readily available bus departure time intervals.     

Mathematical characterization of spatiotemporal congested traffic patterns: mixed speed data analysis in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area,Canada

This paper formulates a comprehensive methodology for analyzing, quantifying and identifying congestion characteristics based on speed distribution. Utilizing vehicle speed data, a mathematical approach is applied, in order to characterize roadway segments, in terms of travel reliability, congestion severity and duration. We argue that the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and its parameter combination is the appropriate tool if we are to obtain quantitative congestion measures and rank roadway performance. A significant contribution of our approach is that it is based on assumptions regarding mixed components as well as speed distribution and can be applied to large databases. We test our framework on the greater Toronto and Hamilton area in Ontario, Canada, and conclude that congestion quantification through the application of the GMM can be successfully accomplished. Results indicate that speed patterns differ significantly between counties as well as days of the week.     

A multiple criteria approach for the evaluation of the rail transit networks in Istanbul

The deficiencies in the Istanbul transportation system have led the local authorities to plan several alternative transportation projects. In this paper three alternative rail transit network proposals are evaluated by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multiple criteria decision support system. The AHP facilitates decision-making by organizing perceptions, experiences, knowledge and judgments, the forces that influence the decision, into a hierarchical framework with a goal, scenarios, criteria and alternatives of choice. Based on this analysis, the decision makers have developed a new alternative as a combination of the most closely competing two alternative rail transit networks. This combination rail transit network is currently under construction.     

枢纽机场联通轨道交通的对策和建议

本文以问题导向和需求导向为出发点,紧密围绕我国千万级枢纽机场连接轨道交通的发展现状,聚焦在规划设计、建设实施、运营管理等方面存在的问题,结合千万级枢纽机场的轨道集疏运的需求分析,提出我国枢纽机场联通轨道交通的对策和建议,为我国枢纽机场轨道集疏运系统的高质量发展提供理论支撑。     

Network effects of intelligent speed adaptation systems

Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) systems use in-vehicle electronic devices to enable the speed of vehicles to be regulated automatically. They are increasingly appreciated as a flexible method for speed management and control particularly in urban areas. On-road trials using a small numbers of ISA equipped vehicles have been carried out in Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. This paper describes the developments made to enhance a traffic microsimulation model in order to represent ISA implemented across a network and the impact of this on the networks. The simulation modelling of the control system is carried out on a real-world urban network, and the impacts on traffic congestion, speed distribution and the environment assessed. The results show that ISA systems are more effective in less congested traffic conditions. Momentary high speeds in traffic are effectively suppressed, resulting in a reduction in speed variation which is likely to have a beneficial impact on safety. Whilst ISA reduces excessive traffic speeds in the network, it does not affect average journey times. In particular, the total vehicle-hours travelling at speeds below 10 km/hr have not changed, indicating that the speed control had not induced more slow-moving queues to the network. A statistically significant, eight percent, reduction in fuel consumption was found with full ISA penetration. These results are in accordance with those from field trials and they provide the basis for cost-benefit analyses on introducing ISA into the vehicle fleet. However, contrary to earlier findings from the Swedish ISA road trials, this study suggested that ISA is likely to have no significant effect on emission of gaseous pollutants CO, NO_x and HC.     

弹性需求下的轨道交通客流分配模型和算法研究

文章分析了轨道交通客流需求量的影响因素,以拥挤条件下的出行阻抗函数为基础,通过引入弹性需求条件下的轨道交通均衡配流条件,构建了弹性需求的均衡配流模型。根据模型的特点,给出了改进的用于求解弹性需求下的轨道交通均衡配流模型的Frank-wolfe算法。最后通过一个算例说明了算法的有效性和合理性。