Modal split models based on car availability: the application of such models in studies of medium sized towns

This paper discusses the need for a new approach to urban transportation modelling in recognition that at least in medium sized towns the choice of model is largely dominated by car availability.     

Bus Transit Service Reliability and Improvement Strategies: Integrating the Perspectives of Passengers and Transit Agencies in North America

Abstract

Transit agencies are consistently trying to improve service reliability and attract new passengers by employing various strategies. Previous literature reviews have focused on either passengers' or transit agencies' perspectives on service reliability. However, none of the earlier reviews have simultaneously addressed these differing perspectives on service reliability in an integrated manner. In response to this gap in the literature, this paper first reviews previous work on passengers' perspectives of transit service reliability and their response to service adjustments made by different agencies. Second, it analyzes transit agencies' plans and reports regarding their reliability goals and used strategies in order to improve service reliability, while looking at the impacts of these strategies on service. Reviewing these two parts together provides a needed contribution to the literature from a practical viewpoint since it allows for the identification of gaps in the public transit planning and operations field in the area of reliability and provides transit planners and decision makers with effective and valuable policy-relevant information.     

Up‐to‐the‐minute information as we drive—how it can help road users and traffic management

Road transport of today has a substantial need for a better information system. The European research programmes PROMETHEUS and DRIVE offer the prospect of new techniques and strategies. The role of information in road transport is analysed from the viewpoint of the individual drivers and from the viewpoint of the traffic manager. All necessary information must be brought together and a complex data‐bank system for road transport should be installed. As examples of advanced information systems the concepts of the ‘Wolfsburg wave’ for in‐car speed recommendation and of the LISB field experiment in route guidance in Berlin are explained.     

A model for multi-class road network recovery scheduling of regional road networks

Transportation - In this paper, an optimisation model for recovery planning of road networks is presented in which both social and economic resilience is aimed to be achieved. The model is...     

Quantitative analysis of passenger and baggage security screening at airports

The terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001 opened a new era in air transportation. The realization that civil aircraft can be used as powerful weapons of mass destruction by a small group of people has drastically increased the need for security screening procedures to protect civil flights. Serving as the interface between the air and land transportation modes, airports have become the main focus in the implementation of those procedures. The need to more thoroughly screen passengers and baggage, and the consequent increase in processing time, has created the need for more space for security checkpoints and baggage screening inside passenger terminal buildings—space that is costly and very difficult to find in existing buildings. This paper evaluates the impact those measures have had on the planning and operation of airport passenger terminals. Quantification of those impacts is performed with the use of discrete‐event simulation and spreadsheet models.     

The optimal dispatching of taxis under congestion: A rolling horizon approach

Taxis make an important contribution to transport in many parts of the world, offering demand‐responsive, door‐to‐door transport. In larger cities, taxis may be hailed on‐street or taken from taxi ranks. Elsewhere, taxis are usually ordered by phone. The objective of a taxi dispatcher is to maximize the efficiency of fleet utilization. While the spatial and temporal distribution of taxi requests has in general a high degree of predictability, real time traffic congestion information can be collected and disseminated to taxis by communication technologies. The efficiency of taxi dispatching may be significantly improved through the anticipation of future requests and traffic conditions. A rolling horizon approach to the optimisation of taxi dispatching is formulated, which takes the stochastic and dynamic nature of the problem into account. Numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the performances of the heuristics, taking the time dependency of travel times and passenger arrivals into account.     

Train boarding and alighting rates at high passenger loads

Line capacity in metro and high‐frequency suburban railways is as much determined by station stop times as by factors such as line speed or train acceleration. This paper applies the method developed by London Underground to estimate the time that trains spend at stations, as a function of the physical characteristics of the situation (e.g. train door width) and the numbers of passengers involved. Analysis was carried out on a number of alternative designs for refurbishment of South West Trains' Class 455 inner‐suburban rolling stock. Whilst there is indeed an interaction between boarding and alighting passengers, this paper demonstrates that the LUL relationship breaks down at the highest passenger loads. Moreover, results indicate that passenger flow is not equal between different parts of the same group of boarders or alighters.     

Integrating formal and informal transit into one hybrid passenger transport system in Lagos,Nigeria

Transportation - Informal minibus services dominate public transportation in Lagos, Nigeria. Local, state, and federal government entities in Nigeria have historically only been able to provide...     

Effect of advanced traveler information systems and road pricing in a network with non-recurrent congestion

The effect of the application of advanced transport information system (ATIS) and road pricing is studied in a transportation system under non-recurrent congestion. A stochastic network deterministic user equilibrium model (SNDUE) with elastic demand is formulated and used to evaluate the welfare and private impacts of different market penetrations of ATIS, together with road pricing for a simple network. Both marginal first-best road pricing and a second-best fixed road pricing are considered. The incentives of private users to use ATIS are analyzed and the characteristics of optimum tolls as a function of ATIS market penetration are shown. We conclude that ATIS is an efficient and necessary tool to reduce the effects of non-recurrent incidents in a transportation network, especially when non-recurrent congestion causes a significant deterioration of operational conditions of the network. If the impact of non-recurrent incidents on free flow costs is small or is reduced only to congestion effects, the use of road pricing would be more efficient. Social benefits obtained when jointly implementing ATIS and road pricing are practically the same whether first-best or second-best road pricing is used. Considering the private costs perceived by the network users, and the benefits experienced by equipped users, the maximum level of market penetration achieved could be limited because private benefits disappear after certain market penetration is obtained.     

Development of real-world driving cycle: Case study of Pune,India

The critical component of all emission models is a driving cycle representing the traffic behaviour. Although Indian driving cycles were developed to test the compliance of Indian vehicles to the relevant emission standards, they neglects higher speed and acceleration and assume all vehicle activities to be similar irrespective of heterogeneity in the traffic mix. Therefore, this study is an attempt to develop an urban driving cycle for estimating vehicular emissions and fuel consumption. The proposed methodology develops the driving cycle using micro-trips extracted from real-world data. The uniqueness of this methodology is that the driving cycle is constructed considering five important parameters of the time–space profile namely, the percentage acceleration, deceleration, idle, cruise, and the average speed. Therefore, this approach is expected to be a better representation of heterogeneous traffic behaviour. The driving cycle for the city of Pune in India is constructed using the proposed methodology and is compared with existing driving cycles.