Relationships between fares, trip length and market competition

This paper analyses equilibrium fares that arise from Collusion, Cournot, Stackelberg, Bertrand and Sequential Price Competition when two profit maximising transport firms produce symmetrically differentiable services and have identical costs. Special focus is placed on how different equilibrium fares are linked to trip length. Higher operator costs and higher demand from the authorities regarding the quality of transport supply result in steeper relationships (larger rate of change) between all fares and travel distance. Also, a higher degree of substitutability between the services will in most cases make these relationships steeper. The competitive situation has less influence on fares, both absolutely and relatively, the longer routes the operators compete on.     

城市交通生成预测实用分析模型及其应用

以城市土地利用特性为基本变量,采用回归分析和系统聚类分析方法建立了交通生成预测实用分析模型。模型应用于浙江湖州市城市综合交通规划实践,结果表明模型能够反映规划年城市土地利用特征变化所带来的各组团交通需求特性的差异,并且具有简捷、实用、可操作性强的特点。     

交通出行预测的神经网络模型

针对交通出行集计预测模型的缺陷,结合神经网络在非线性关系映射方面的优势,本文提出了交通出行预测的BP神经网络模型。作者在对BP神经网络的结构和算法进行分析的基础上,研究了交通出行预测BP神经网络模型的影响因素、模型结构和模型数据,并采用实际调查数据对模型进行了检验和应用。研究结果表明模型预测精度较高,既有很强的理论优势和解释性,又有良好的操作性．最后,文章讨论了下一步的研究方向．     

关于缩短公交出行起始步行路程和最终步行路程的研究

缩短公交出行起始步行路程和最终步行路程是提高公交出行便捷性、扩大公交出行分担率最重要的措施之一。本文介绍了缩短公交出行起始步行路程和最终步行路程的主要途径、某一公交站台起始步行路程和最终步行路程的计算办法和某一公交线网起始步行路程和最终步行路程的评价办法,并对利用站台覆盖率这一指标评价公交线网起始步行路程和最终步行路程的不足之处进行了讨论。     

城市居民出行次数变权预测方法

传统居民出行生成次数采用线性回归分析现状数据,建立居民特征变量与出行次数间的关系,但并未区分样本权重,预测结果受样本点波动影响较大。因此,论文考虑对不同的样本点施加不同权重,以区分不同样本点对预测结果的影响程度,并以最小二乘参数估计法为基础,采用Robust估计中的Welsch方法构造样本点权重值,通过迭代运算确定样本权重系数,进而建立样本权重变化的预测方法。研究表明,变权预测方法可应用于样本量大、变量众多,并难以准确识别样本有效性的情况。预测结果有效地避免了数据波动对预测结论的干扰,可更贴近居民出行次数的变化趋势。     

Direct and indirect influences on employed adults’ travel in the UK: New insights from the National Travel Survey data 2002–2010

Recent years saw a continuing shift in labour force composition, e.g. greater participation of women and a prominent rise in part-time workers. There are as yet relatively few recent studies that examine systematically the influences on the travel of employed adults from such perspectives, particularly regarding possible transport disadvantages of the fastest growing segments of workers. A robust analysis requires systematic data on a wide range of explanatory variables and multiple travel outcomes including accessibility, mobility and trip frequency for different trip purposes. The UK NTS data does meet the majority of this demanding data requirement, but its full use has so far been hampered by methodological difficulties. To overcome complex endogeneity problems, we develop novel, integrated structural equation models (SEMs) to uncover the influences of latent land use characteristics, indirect influences on car ownership, interactions among trip purposes as well as residents’ self-selection and spatial sorting. This general-purpose method provides a new, systematic decomposition of the influences on travel outcomes, where the effects of each variable can be examined in turn with robust error terms. The new insights underline two direct policy implications. First, it highlights the contributions of land use planning and urban design in restraining travel demand in the 2000s, and their increasing influence over the decade. Secondly, it shows that there may still be a large mobility disadvantage among the fastest growing segments of workers, particularly in dense urban areas. This research further investigates trend breaking influences before and after 2007 through grouped SEM models, as a test of the methodology for producing regular and timely updates regarding the main influences on personal travel from a system level.     

Comparing decision tree algorithms to estimate intercity trip distribution

Traditional trip distribution models usually ignore the fact that destination choices are made individually in addition to aggregated factors, such as employment and average travel costs. This paper proposes a disaggregated analysis of destination choices for intercity trips, taking into account aggregated characteristics of the origin city, an impedance measurement and disaggregated variables related to the individual, by applying nonparametric Decision Tree (DT) algorithms. Furthermore, each algorithm’s performance is compared with traditional gravity models estimated from a stepwise procedure (1) and a doubly constrained procedure (2). The analysis was based on a dataset from the 2012 Origin-Destination Survey carried out in Bahia, Brazil. The final selected variables to describe the destination choices were population of the origin city, GDP of the origin city and travel distances at an aggregated level, as well as the variables: age, occupation, level of education, income (monthly), number of cars per household and gender at a disaggregated one. The comparison of the DT models with gravity models demonstrated that the former models provided better accuracy when predicting the destination choices (trip length distribution, goodness-of-fit measures and qualitative perspective). The main conclusion is that Decision Tree algorithms can be applied to distribution modeling to improve traditional trip distribution approaches by assimilating the effect of disaggregated variables.     

Impact evaluation of a mass transit fare change on demand and revenue utilizing smart card data

Transit fares are an effective tool for demand management. Transit agencies can raise revenue or relieve overcrowding via fare increases, but they are always confronted with the possibility of heavy ridership losses. Therefore, the outcome of fare changes should be evaluated before implementation. In this work, a methodology was formulated based on elasticity and exhaustive transit card data, and a network approach was proposed to assess the influence of distance-based fare increases on ridership and revenue. The approach was applied to a fare change plan for Beijing Metro. The price elasticities of demand for Beijing Metro at various fare levels and trip distances were tabulated from a stated preference survey. Trip data recorded by an automatic fare collection system was used alongside the topology of the Beijing Metro system to calculate the shortest path lengths between all station pairs, the origin–destination matrix, and trip lengths. Finally, three fare increase alternatives (high, medium, and low) were evaluated in terms of their impact on ridership and revenue. The results demonstrated that smart card data have great potential with regard to fare change evaluation. According to smart card data for a large transit network, the statistical frequency of trip lengths is more highly concentrated than that of the shortest path length. Moreover, the majority of the total trips have a length of around 15 km, and these are the most sensitive to fare increases. Specific attention should be paid to this characteristic when developing fare change plans to manage demand or raise revenue.