公交查询系统设计与开发

为提供快速简便的城市公交站点、线路查询服务,文章采用B/S模式、ASP.NET（C#）开发环境及工具、Web发布服务方式以及Microsoft SQL Server后台数据库,构建了一个简单、实用的公交查询系统,并对该系统的整体架构、数据库设计及应用程序设计方法进行了介绍。     

Financing public transport systems in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia: challenges and prospects

Most major cities across the world today are facing an intractable challenge of financing public transport. In Kuala Lumpur for example, public transport services are somewhat poor in part because of the failure of major operators to secure ample funding. Previous funding programs implemented in the city have failed to produce a replicable model for financing public transport. Due to numerous financial problems and the dismal performance of privately owned transport firms, the State has in the recent past emerged as a key source of funding for the public transport sector in Kuala Lumpur. This article argues that, despite the insuperable challenges, prospects for the future funding of public transport in Kuala Lumpur appears to be good. The article also draws lessons from both Tokyo and Hong Kong. In order to address the funding deficit facing the public transport industry in the city it is crucial that more viable strategies and policies such as value capture and public–private sector partnerships are adopted by the urban authorities.

The effect of financial constraints on the optimal design of public transport services

Recent experience with the design of bus services in Santiago, Chile, seems to confirm Jansson's (1980) assertion regarding observed planned bus frequency and size being too low and too large, respectively. We offer an explanation based upon the relation between cost coverage, pricing and optimal design variables. We recall that average social cost decreases with patronage, which generates an optimal monetary fare below the average operators' cost, inducing an optimal subsidy. Then we compare optimal frequency and bus size—those that minimize total social costs—with those that minimize operators' costs only. We show that an active constraint on operators' expenses is equivalent to diminish the value of users' time in the optimal design problem. Inserting this property back in the optimal pricing scheme, we conclude that a self-financial constraint, if active, always provokes an inferior solution, a smaller frequency and, under some circumstances, larger than optimal buses.

A hybrid model of fuzzy and AHP for handling public assessments on transportation projects

Having an effective public participation in transportation planning and project development processes has been a major concern for developed countries. In the United States, for instance, all state Departments of Transportation are subject to the Transportation Equity Act (TEA-21) that formally requires public involvement in transportation planning. Since transportation planning involves public resources and values, judgments by the public should play a key role in determining final decisions. Therefore, all these agencies are required not only to disseminate information to the public, but also to solicit and consider public opinion in forming transportation policy. This work presents a decision support model, with public involvement and public oversight, to help policy makers select appropriate transportation projects for implementation. Since focus groups will face multiple objectives and inexact information in the process, a hybrid model of fuzzy logic and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is proposed. A set of ‘if–then’ rules based on Weber’s psycho-physical law of 1834 is presented to reason from fuzzy numbers to capture essential subjective preferences, pairwise, among the alternatives. The AHP is then incorporated to estimate preference allotments among alternatives. An example application of the suggested method is provided seeking public approval of an appropriate public bus transportation system choosing between one run by municipal authorities and one run by private agencies to show how this procedure works.

基于GIS的公交站台信息查询系统的开发

为乘客的公交出行提供基本的公交信息及最优乘车方案的查询,开发了基于GIS的公交站台触摸屏查询系统。系统数据库以ACCESS进行描述,以ADO．NET与数据库进行连接访问,以Maplnfo地理信息系统平台为基础,利用VB．NET语言编程完成了基于GIS的站台触摸屏公交查询系统的开发。经过实验测试及实际运用,该系统能够在换乘次数最少的前提下,给出四种可供选择的优化目标,分别为出行时间最少、出行费用最少、出行距离最短以及舒适度最佳。用户根据自己的情况选择优化目标,系统将给出相应的乘车方案。     

Analytical and institutional methods and frameworks

This chapter presents a summary of the findings of the workshop on ‘Analytical and Institutional Methods and Frameworks’. The paper discusses the nature of the analytical methods used in the papers presented and the purposes for which they were employed, which were generally to either assist in the planning and operation of public transport or to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of transport services. Subsequent sections examine issues related to data collection and management, and the more general issue of institutional arrangements. Policy and research agendas needed to support further consideration of the subject are then identified.     

Birds using tram tracks in Poznań (Poland): Species,infrastructure use and behaviour

Transport infrastructures, mainly roads and railways, influence many aspects of bird life. The use of trams in urban areas for mass transit has been suggested as having a lower impact on the environment. However, to date, the impact of tram tracks and the surrounding infrastructure on birds has not been directly tested. Therefore, we posed two questions during a study of tramways in Poznań (western Poland): (1) which bird species use tram tracks and their infrastructure; and (2) how does their behaviour respond to moving trams. Tram tracks were recorded as used by 11 species, with four corvids (jackdaw Corvus monedula, rook Corvus frugilegus, magpie Pica pica and hooded crow Corvus cornix) totalling 66% of records and feral pigeon Columba livia contributing a further 24%. Species showed different usage patterns of the tram infrastructure. In the case of rook during winter, significantly more birds were observed further from a tram stop. In summer, a higher density of jackdaws occurred where track surroundings were vegetated, and both hooded crows in winter and magpies in winter were more abundant where track geometry was more complex. During our field work only two dead birds on tram tracks were observed. The results of this study, and a literature survey of other transport options, suggest that tram tracks are not very dangerous for birds, and at least from this point of view, can be recommended as an environmentally friendly transport system in urban areas.     

Does green transportation promote accessibility for equity in medium-size U.S. cites?

The link between accessibility and social equity attracts much attention for promoting sustainability. However, there is no comprehensive approach to elevate the role of accessibility in evaluating transportation system over social equity by considering the variety of urban opportunities and population groups from green transportation perspective. Our goal is to develop such a framework to evaluate transportation equity by focusing on accessibility via transit and cycling. Applying the framework to Fresno, California, and Cincinnati, Ohio with different development patterns, we delineate service areas at block-group level with five time-thresholds. The service area is used to count the number of urban opportunities: jobs, dining, churches, libraries, parks, multi-use paths, schools. We then use statistical comparison and geographical mapping to identify accessibility gap to these opportunities between advantaged and disadvantaged groups defined by income, property value, education, vehicle ownership, race, and age. The results indicate the extent of differences in accessibility is sensitive to threshold specification of grouping population. The findings suggest that the efficiency of transit service needs to be improved to reach the same level of cycling, while they do help with the accessibility for economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Considering school enrollment, the accessibility to opportunities in Fresno performs differently while students in Cincinnati benefit from good accessibility to most resources. The results of accessibility to multi-use paths highlight the need of providing more efficient green transportation facilities for less wealthy neighborhoods. Variation in accessibility between groups underscores the importance of developing policies to meet the needs of diverse social groups.     

Stochastic dynamic switching in fixed and flexible transit services as market entry-exit real options

The first analytical stochastic and dynamic model for optimizing transit service switching is proposed for “smart transit” applications and for operating shared autonomous transit fleets. The model assumes a region that requires many-to-one last mile transit service either with fixed-route buses or flexible-route, on-demand buses. The demand density evolves continuously over time as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. The optimal policy is determined by solving the switching problem as a market entry and exit real options model. Analysis using the model on a benchmark computational example illustrates the presence of a hysteresis effect, an indifference band that is sensitive to transportation system state and demand parameters, as well as the presence of switching thresholds that exhibit asymmetric sensitivities to transportation system conditions. The proposed policy is computationally compared in a 24-hour simulation to a “perfect information” set of decisions and a myopic policy that has been dominant in the flexible transit literature, with results that suggest the proposed policy can reduce by up to 72% of the excess cost in the myopic policy. Computational experiments of the “modular vehicle” policy demonstrate the existence of an option premium for having flexibility to switch between two vehicle sizes.     

Passenger arrival and waiting time distributions dependent on train service frequency and station characteristics: A smart card data analysis

Waiting time at public transport stops is perceived by passengers to be more onerous than in-vehicle time, hence it strongly influences the attractiveness and use of public transport. Transport models traditionally assume that average waiting times are half the service headway by assuming random passenger arrivals. However, research agree that two distinct passenger behaviour types exist: one group arrives randomly, whereas another group actively tries to minimise their waiting time by arriving in a timely manner at the scheduled departure time. This study proposes a general framework for estimating passenger waiting times which incorporates the arrival patterns of these two groups explicitly, namely by using a mixture distribution consisting of a uniform and a beta distribution. The framework is empirically validated using a large-scale automatic fare collection system from the Greater Copenhagen Area covering metro, suburban, and regional rail stations thereby giving a range of service headways from 2 to 60 min. It was shown that the proposed mixture distribution is superior to other distributions proposed in the literature. This can improve waiting time estimations in public transport models. The results show that even at 5-min headways 43% of passengers arrive in a timely manner to stations when timetables are available. The results bear important policy implications in terms of providing actual timetables, even at high service frequencies, in order for passengers to be able to minimise their waiting times.