Monash University, Institute of Transport Studies: World Transit Research (WTR)
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Inclusion and Exclusion in Establishing the Delmar Loop Transit-Oriented Development Site
No full textThis research uses St. Louis, Missouri’s proposed Delmar Loop Transit-oriented development (TOD) site as a case study to identify how private interests overshadow overall inclusivity within a TOD space. Through content analysis and interviews, I reveal how establishing the TOD site aims to expand the existing entertainment district, but excludes the site’s predominately black and more transit-dependent West End neighborhood in TOD planning activities. Recognizing how different spaces and residents are excluded in ongoing TOD planning processes aims to highlight the spaces and residents most at risk for future displacement—pointing planners to areas of needed interventions
Guiding principles for integrating on-demand transit into conventional transit networks: A review of literature and practice
No full textOn-demand transit (ODT) has been widely piloted in recent years by many transit agencies in response to changing travel behaviour and preferences among people. Some agencies have adopted ODT to replace underperforming bus routes, as part of a continuous service planning process while others incorporated it within network re-design. All these trends highlight the critical need for transit agencies to have guidance for incorporating ODT into transit network planning both at the strategic, tactical, and service planning levels. Thus, the purpose of this research is to provide a discussion of the key guiding principles to facilitate the development of transit networks with integrated on-demand and scheduled services. To achieve this goal, a thorough review of the states of practice and research was conducted. Findings from the practice review were also reinforced through ODT practitioners’ engagement in Canada. This paper provides discussions on the service goals and objectives of an integrated network design and highlights the key planning requirements for developing integrated networks. At the service planning level, the paper provides a discussion on service goals, service design parameters, and scenario development of ODT service
Efficiency and equality of the multimodal travel between public transit and bike-sharing accounting for multiscale
No full textAs a supplement to the existing public transit system, bike-sharing is considered an effective solution to the “first mile” and “last mile” of travel. While many stakeholders believe that multimodal travel between public transit and bike-sharing can improve urban accessibility and sustainability, few studies have assessed the impact of bike-sharing on existing public transportation systems in terms of efficiency and equality. This research uses three months of mobile phone location data and about 140 million bike-sharing trips (origin–destination, OD) data from Shenzhen, China, to analyze first mile and last mile bike-sharing multimodal travel and measure the impact of bike-sharing on the existing public transportation system in terms of efficiency and equality at different scales. The research finds that bike-sharing is less effective in improving the operational efficiency of urban public transport and creates new inequalities at both global and local scales of the urban public transport system. Bike-sharing is only effective in tiny areas of the city and specific modes (subway-bike-sharing) and does not benefit groups with low socioeconomic levels and those living in edge areas of the city. Improving the equity and accessibility of public transportation is a key factor towards promoting sustainable urban development, and the analysis of this study on multimodal travel efficiency and inequality of bike-sharing can provide helpful insights for future sustainable urban planning
Integrated impact of urban mixed land use on TOD ridership: A multi-radius comparative analysis
No full textThe global trend toward urbanization has spurred the widespread adoption of transit-oriented development (TOD). While previous research has extensively explored the relationship between land use and TOD ridership, much of it has focused on linear associations at a singular scale. Leveraging recent advancements in nonlinear modeling and the accessibility of open-source data, this study employs a comprehensive two-step methodology. Firstly, K-means clustering algorithm categorizes TOD sites in Shenzhen into three distinct clusters, providing a site-based understanding of their characteristics. Subsequently, a Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) classification model, complemented by SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) values for interpretation, quantitatively evaluates the influence of mixed land use on TOD ridership across various catchment areas. As for the findings, we discover that land-use factors have different effects on TOD site patronage at different buffer radii and delve into the intricacies of these effects. Further results reveal non-linear relationships with varying degrees of positivity and negativity. For instance, residents and health sites positively impact patronage across all buffer radii, while certain commercial land uses exhibit a negative influence. The study demonstrates how the importance of different land-use structures varies across these clusters, shedding light on the nuanced impacts of land use on TOD catchment areas. Our research optimizes land-use mixes based on predominant cluster characteristics by offering actionable recommendations for urban managers
Optimal variable vehicle scheduling strategy for a network of electric buses with fast opportunity charging
No full textThe introduction of battery-powered electric buses (EBs) presents promising prospects for greener and more sustainable public transit. However, recharging activities of EBs to extend the total daily operation range, enabled by fast opportunity charging approach, create a significant challenge for attaining better, or equivalent, operational efficiency than conventional diesel buses. We propose a novel variable vehicle scheduling strategy of a transit EB network with multiple depots to meet this challenge by right shifting trip departure times. A numerical example is used as an expository device to illustrate the variable EB-scheduling methodology, followed by an empirical case study in the city of Dalian, China. The results show how the optimised variable EB scheduling strategy can reduce the impact of recharging activities on the operation’s efficiency. It has been found that by inserting a small schedule delay it is possible to save operational costs, especially through a reduction of the fleet size
A general metro timetable rescheduling approach for the minimisation of the capacity loss after random line disruption
No full textThis study proposes a generic metro timetable rescheduling method for the minimization of the capacity loss that integrates spatial and temporal information on random line disruptions and time-varying characteristics of passenger flows. The proposed emergency operating rules can be immediately deployed after a random disruption using one crossover track. The spatiotemporal information of a disruption and the current state of the line are integrated into a metro disruption management (MDM) model, which considers deviated from the original schedule and the number of stranded passengers as optimization objectives. An iterative meta-heuristic for the general metro rescheduling (IMH-GMR) algorithm is developed to flexibly classify an accident and determine rescheduling solutions for the MDM model within an effective running time (e.g., 15-60 sec). Test results show that the line capacity loss is significantly reduced (94.95%) compared with the total loss caused by the accident disposal in the test scenario
An agent-based fleet management model for first- and last-mile services
No full textWith the growth of cars and car-sharing applications, commuters in many cities, particularly developing countries, are shifting away from public transport. These shifts have affected two key stakeholders: transit operators and first- and last-mile (FLM) services. Although most cities continue to invest heavily in bus and metro projects to make public transit attractive, ridership in these systems has often failed to reach targeted levels. FLM service providers also experience lower demand and revenues in the wake of shifts to other means of transport. Effective FLM options are required to prevent this phenomenon and make public transport attractive for commuters. One possible solution is to forge partnerships between public transport and FLM providers that offer competitive joint mobility options. Such solutions require prudent allocation of supply and optimised strategies for FLM operations and ride-sharing. To this end, we build an agent- and event-based simulation model which captures interactions between passengers and FLM services using statecharts, vehicle routing models, and other trip matching rules. An optimisation model for allocating FLM vehicles at different transit stations is proposed to reduce unserved requests. Using real-world metro transit demand data from Bengaluru, India, the effectiveness of our approach in improving FLM connectivity and quantifying the benefits of sharing trips is demonstrated
Life cycle thinking-based analysis of diesel and electric-powered buses for Canadian transit systems
No full textIncreasing greenhouse gas emissions from the conventional fleet of diesel buses has made Canadian transit agencies explore low-emission alternative fuels. Despite electric buses showing great potential to reduce emissions during their operational phase, the transformation from diesel buses to electric buses would require in-depth analysis pertaining to their economic and social implications. Published literature highlights the importance of developing a comprehensive framework that considers multiple decision parameters over a life cycle perspective for analyzing different fuel options to replace the existing fleet of diesel buses. This paper assesses the triple-bottom-line sustainability of diesel and electric buses in different regions of Canada. Moreover, a framework is proposed to incorporate multiple decision criteria (life cycle environmental, economic, and social impacts) over different perspectives to make the best decisions for transitioning the diesel bus fleet. The results showed that the environmental performance of electric buses highly depended on the electricity grid mix. Despite diesel buses having a low cost of production compared to electric buses, most provinces showed a low life cycle operational cost for electric buses. Electric buses’ life cycle social impacts are high during their production stage, whereas diesel buses have the highest social impacts during their operational phase. Overall, electric buses have a high sustainability performance in all provinces and territories in Canada except Nunavut. The proposed framework and findings can aid policymakers and planners in implementing electric buses for public transit systems in Canada and beyond
An automatic methodology to measure drivers’ behavior in public transport
No full textThe way in which public transport buses are driven has an influence in users’perception and satisfaction with the service. Bus driver’s behavior is usually obtained surveying passengers and/or using the mystery passenger method, not necessarily allowing for an objective and continuous evaluation. In this work, we introduce a novel methodology to automatically classify drivers’ behavior in a more consistent and objective manner, based on data from inertial measurement units, and machine learning techniques. By substituting human evaluators with automatic data collection and classification algorithms, we are able to reduce the subjectivity and cost of the current methodology, while increasing sample size. Our approach is based on three components: i) data capture using inertial measurement units (e.g. mobile devices), ii) carefully tuned classifiers that deal with sample imbalance problems, and iii) an interpretable scoring system. Results show that collected data captures several types of undesirable maneuvers, providing a rich information to the classification process. In terms of categorization performance, the evaluated classifiers, namely support vector machines, decision trees and k-NN, deliver high and consistent accuracy after the tuning process, even in the presence of a highly imbalanced sample. Finally, the proposed driver’s behavior score shows high discriminative power, effectively characterizing differences between drivers, and providing driver-tailored driving recommendations, that can be generated in specific spots, in order to improve passengers’ experience. The resulting methodology can be cost-effectively deployed at a large scale with good performance
The analysis of spatio-temporal characteristics and determinants of dockless bike-sharing and metro integration
No full textAs an affordable form of public transit, the metro still faces first- and last-mile problems. Integration of dockless bike sharing (DBS) and the metro offers a reasonable solution to this problem. However, an in-depth exploration of the spatio-temporal characteristics and determinants of DBS–metro integration, especially meteorological indicators, is lacking. The spatiotemporal characteristics of the transfer volume on weekdays and weekends in Beijing were analyzed. Geographically weighted regression was utilized to investigate the effects of the significant determinants on the spatial variation of the transfer volume. The results indicate that the transfer volume is concentrated within the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing. The effects of education services and metro station density were negatively correlated with transfer volume. As expected, population density and enterprises positively affect transfer volume, whereas wind speed and relative humidity have negative effects. These findings provide new insights into the promotion of DBS–metro integration