Understanding the impacts of a combination of service improvement strategies on bus running time and passenger’s perception

Transit agencies implement many strategies in order to provide an attractive transportation service. This article aims to evaluate the impacts of implementing a combination of strategies, designed to improve the bus transit service, on running time and passenger satisfaction. These strategies include using smart card fare collection, introducing limited-stop bus service, implementing reserved bus lanes, using articulated buses, and implementing transit signal priority (TSP). This study uses stop-level data collected from the Société de transport de Montréal (STM)’s automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger count (APC) systems, in Montréal, Canada. The combination of these strategies has lead to a 10.5% decline in running time along the limited stop service compared to the regular service. The regular route running time has increased by 1% on average compared to the initial time period. The study also shows that riders are generally satisfied with the service improvements. They tend to overestimate the savings associated with the implementation of this combination of strategies by 3.5-6.0 min and by 2.5-4.1 min for both the regular route and the limited stop service, respectively. This study helps transit planners and policy makers to better understand the effects of implementing a combination of strategies to improve running time and passenger’s perception of these changes in service.     

Value of travel time reliability: A review of current evidence

Travel time reliability is a fundamental factor in travel behavior. It represents the temporal uncertainty experienced by travelers in their movement between any two nodes in a network. The importance of the time reliability depends on the penalties incurred by the travelers. In road networks, travelers consider the existence of a trip travel time uncertainty in different choice situations (departure time, route, mode, and others). In this paper, a systematic review of the current state of research in travel time reliability, and more explicitly in the value of travel time reliability is presented. Moreover, a meta-analysis is performed in order to determine the reasons behind the discrepancy among the reliability estimates.     

Recursive estimation of average vehicle time headway using single inductive loop detector data

Vehicle time headway is an important traffic parameter. It affects roadway safety, capacity, and level of service. Single inductive loop detectors are widely deployed in road networks, supplying a wealth of information on the current status of traffic flow. In this paper, we perform Bayesian analysis to online estimate average vehicle time headway using the data collected from a single inductive loop detector. We consider three different scenarios, i.e. light, congested, and disturbed traffic conditions, and have developed a set of unified recursive estimation equations that can be applied to all three scenarios. The computational overhead of updating the estimate is kept to a minimum. The developed recursive method provides an efficient way for the online monitoring of roadway safety and level of service. The method is illustrated using a simulation study and real traffic data.     

Prediction of travel time variability for cost-benefit analysis

Unreliable travel times cause substantial costs to travelers. Nevertheless, they are often not taken into account in cost-benefit analyses (CBA), or only in very rough ways. This paper aims at providing simple rules to predict variability, based on travel time data from Dutch highways. Two different concepts of travel time variability are used, which differ in their assumptions on information availability to drivers. The first measure is based on the assumption that, for a given road link and given time of day, the expected travel time is constant across all working days (rough information: RI). In the second case, expected travel times are assumed to reflect day-specific factors such as weather conditions or weekdays (fine information: FI). For both definitions of variability, we find that the mean travel time is a good predictor. On average, longer delays are associated with higher variability. However, the derivative of variability with respect to delays is decreasing in delays. It can be shown that this result relates to differences in the relative shares of observed traffic ‘regimes’ (free-flow, congested, hyper-congested) in the mean delay. For most CBAs, no information on the relative shares of the traffic regimes is available. A non-linear model based on mean travel times can then be used as an approximation.     

On the income elasticity of the value of travel time

Transport infrastructure is long-term and in appraisal it is necessary to value travel time savings for future years. This requires knowing how the value of time (VTT) will develop over time as incomes grow. This paper investigates if the cross-sectional income elasticity of the VTT is equal to inter-temporal income elasticity. The study is based on two identical stated choice experiments conducted with a 13 year interval. Results indicate that the relationship between income and the VTT in the cross-section has remained unchanged over time. As a consequence, the inter-temporal income elasticity of the VTT can be predicted based on cross-sectional income elasticity. However, the income elasticity of the VTT is not a constant but increases with income. For this reason, the average income elasticity of the VTT in the cross-sections has increased between the two survey years and can be expected to increase further over time.     

适于TBM施工的HSP法实时预报技术设计与实现

为实现TBM施工隧道的实时地质预报,以TBM刀盘滚刀破岩震动作为震源的HSP法地质预报技术为基础,通过分析TBM施工工艺与机身结构特点,对HSP系统硬件和软件进行优化设计,使其小型化、自动化和智能化,并搭载于TBM上进行智能控制。在TBM掘进过程中,首先,通过隧道轮廓位置的检波器连续或高频次地采集地震反射波信号; 然后,经系统软件对数据的自动处理,实时获取掌子面前方地层反射特征参数图谱; 其次,通过智能识别技术完成对不良地质反射界面的有效拾取与判识; 最后,实现不良地质的探测。通过对适于TBM施工的HSP法实时预报技术进行优化设计,实时探查前方地层不良地质(体)位置、规模与性质,为TBM的高效施工起到一定的推助作用。     

A Pareto-improving hybrid rationing and pricing policy with multiclass network equilibria

This paper extends the work on Pareto-improving hybrid rationing and pricing policy for general road networks by considering heterogeneous users with different values of time. Mathematical programming models are proposed to find a multiclass Pareto-improving pure road space rationing scheme (MPI-PR) and multiclass hybrid rationing and pricing schemes (MHPI and MHPI-S). A numerical example with a multimodal network is provided for comparing both the efficiency and equity of the three proposed policies. We discover that MHPI-S can achieve the largest reduction in total system delay, MHPI can induce the least spatial inequity and MHPI-S is a progressive policy which is appealing to policy makers. Furthermore, numerical results reveal that different classes of users react differently to the same hybrid policies and multiclass Pareto-improving hybrid schemes yield less delay reduction when compared to their single-class counterparts.     

Aggregating mobile object trajectories: cumulative time geographic density estimation for GPS data

We present new approaches that expand upon the time geographic density estimation (TGDE) framework previously employed to estimate potential path trees. In the past, TGDE metrics have identified possible locations an individual moving object may have passed between, given known origin and destination points. This paper utilizes a new form of TGDE to investigate taxicab GPS traces over a specified time horizon with position ‘gaps’. To this end, we propose a new extension to the TGDE framework, TGDE-C, which is used to determine the cumulative TGDE values for a group of GPS traces, at a given location. These metrics are applied to multiple taxis and allow for time of day analysis. Additionally, we combine these new extensions with existing TGDE metrics that allow us to determine how accessible individual or groups of vehicles are to urban opportunities.     

Formulating cargo inventory costs for liner shipping network design

This study examines how to incorporate the inventory costs of containerized cargoes into existing liner service planning models such that the designed networks could be improved while not causing extra modeling/computational burden. Two approaches are compared: (i) not considering the inventory costs at all and (ii) incorporating the inventory costs associated with onboard time and those related to transshipment by assuming a fixed connection time. The two models are compared with the ideal model capturing the exact inventory costs on a route choice problem and a capacity planning problem based on extensive randomly generated and practical numerical experiments. The results show that: first, ignoring the inventory costs in service planning models may lead to network design with much higher costs (poor network design decisions); second, in service planning models assuming weekly frequency, the inventory costs associated with onboard time could be formulated exactly, and those related to the connection time of weekly services could be approximated by assuming fixed connection time of 3.5 days for ports with 1 day’s minimum connection time and 4.5 days for ports with 2 days’ minimum connection time.     

Mathematically calculating the transit time of cargo through a liner shipping network with various trans-shipment policies

This paper derives the mathematical expressions for the transit time of cargo through a liner shipping network. Main efforts are devoted to deriving the calculation expressions of the connection time of cargo during trans-shipment. For the forward and many-to-one trans-shipment policies, we conduct a minor correction towards the expressions in existing studies to improve the completeness. Meanwhile, we propose an alternative but more straightforward calculation method for connection time which bypasses the complicated inductive argument in existing studies. Then we introduce two new trans-shipment policies: backward trans-shipment and one-to-many trans-shipment, and mathematically calculate the corresponding connection times. Numerical experiments also deliver some managerial insights into the effectiveness of backward trans-shipment in transit time control.