Journal of Public Transportation最新文献

The concept of level of service (LOS) is meant to reflect user perception of the quality of service provided by a transportation facility or service. Although the LOS of bus rapid transit (BRT) has received considerable attention, the number of levels of service of BRT that a user can perceive still remains unclear. Therefore, this paper addresses this issue using fuzzy clustering of user perception. User perception is a six-dimension vector including perceived arrival time, perceived waiting time, bus speed perception, passenger load perception, perceived departure time, and overall perception. The research team developed a smartphone-based transit travel survey system to conduct the user perception surveys in three BRT systems in China. Fuzzy C-means clustering, improved using a simulated annealing genetic algorithm, was adopted to partition user perception into 2–10 clusters. Seven cluster validity indices were used to determine the appropriate number of LOS categories. The results indicate that users can perceive two to four levels of service.

Public transit ridership forecasts have long played a role in understanding the potential success of a policy or investment, but their limitations have led researchers and practitioners to identify other performance analysis approaches. Accessibility, or the ease of reaching opportunities, has become very popular and widely used for this purpose. But commonly used accessibility measures also embody weaknesses that are seldom acknowledged; these limit their utility for truly understanding the benefits of transit investments. In this paper, we identify the pros and cons of these competing approaches and offer a third strategy. Specifically, we describe how revealed travel behavior data, potentially combined with near-term forecasts, can provide information about how current public transit users will be affected by a new project. While acknowledging the limitations of this approach, we demonstrate how accessibility can be misleading when applied without an understanding of ridership patterns.

Improving the service quality of public transport is necessary to maintain the loyalty of current users and attract new travelers. Past studies show that users’ preferences for transit service quality are heterogeneous, but recognizing the factors describing this heterogeneity has not been investigated in depth. This paper aims to evaluate the sources of heterogeneity in passengers’ preferences for service attributes of bus transit regarding the regular bus system in the city of Tehran. Four attributes of bus travel, including in-vehicle travel time, fare, vehicle crowding, and headway, were considered. Stated preference (SP) data of 360 commuters with work purpose was collected through face-to-face interviews. The random parameter logit (RPL) model, considering the heterogeneity around the mean of random coefficients, shows that heterogeneity can be explained to some extent by observed characteristics. It can be helpful for transit operators to adopt more efficient measures to improve service aspects.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Dar es Salaam. A Bayesian Hierarchical modeling approach and Bayesian hypothesis test were used to compare the operational performance of BRT against the non-BRT buses and private automobiles. The study also examined factors affecting the travel times of the three modes of transportation. The study corridor, which is 10.2 kilometers long, is an arterial segment along Morogoro Road. The predicted travel time for BRT was lowest at the 95% Bayesian credible interval, with a mean value of 16 minutes. Non-BRT bus trips had the highest travel time of 28 minutes, followed by personal automobile trips with an average travel time of 18 minutes, indicating that BRT buses improve travel time along the study corridor. Factors such as delay, time of day, dwelling time, number of stops, and trip direction significantly influenced travel time variability along the study routes.

The early 20th century saw the rise of the urban motor coach in several larger cities as entrepreneurial firms introduced a new transit technology. These urban motor coach companies (and, in some cases, streetcar companies) leveraged the then-new bus technology to introduce service innovations that attracted new transit customers. This paper traces the rise and fall of these new market entrants, their key service and organizational innovations, and their legacy for differentiated bus services today.

Most studies on the operation and planning of integrated systems have been based on the needs of public transport users without disabilities. However, people with disabilities face different challenges when riding public transport. This study adopts Weber’s Law "Just Noticeable Difference" to investigate the travel time savings and transfer time desired by public transport users with disabilities when selecting a route with transfer(s). An online survey was undertaken in major cities around New Zealand. A total of 108 public transport users with disabilities who have traveled independently in the last five years participated. Results show a variation among the travel time savings required by different groups of users with disabilities when choosing transfers. Participants with multiple impairments were less willing to choose a transfer route (k=0.458), followed by participants with cognitive impairments (k=0.315). There is a negligible difference in willingness between participants with physical (k=0.255) and visual impairments (k=0.253). Findings from this study are expected to assist transport planners and public transport operators in reconsidering how they design integrated systems to ensure ease of transfers for people with disabilities.

The concept of bike sharing has existed around the world for several decades. However, the prevalence and popularity of bike share programs has increased rapidly, both in the United States and internationally, in the last decade. Initially implemented in larger cities, the programs’ effectiveness and applicability is prompting smaller communities to launch their own programs. While bike share is expanding to many smaller cities, there is a need to better understand the impact of bike share programs on other travel modes such as automobile, public transportation, bicycling, and walking in smaller communities. To that end, this study analyzes the impact of bike share on mode share and transit usage in a smaller, university city of Fargo, North Dakota. This objective is achieved by surveying North Dakota State University (NDSU) students who are the primary users of the bike share program; surveys were conducted before and after the launch of the bike share program. A regression model was also developed, using daily transit ridership data, to estimate the impact of bike share use on bus ridership. Results showed that the bike share program did have some negative effect on bus ridership.

This study adopts an Access-Oriented Design (AOD) framework for optimizing transit network design. We present and demonstrate a method to evaluate the best combination of local and express alternative transit system designs through the novel concept of ‘iso-access lines’. Two bus network system designs were explored for a greenfield development in suburban Sydney: through-routed transit lines (T-ways) with higher speeds and more direct service, but longer access and egress times, and local routes that provide additional spatial coverage. We developed scenarios with T-ways only, local routes only, and both, and computed transit access to jobs as a cumulative-opportunities measure for each scenario. Local routes offer greater overall access, while T-ways provide greater access-per-unit-cost. The optimal combination of the two was established by generating ‘iso-access’ lines and determining access-maximizing combinations for a given cost by applying production-theory principles. For 15-min access, the optimal combinations had T-way service frequency equivalent to 0.48 times that of local routes. This ratio increased to 1.45, 2.05 and 2.63 for 30-min, 45- min and 60-min access respectively. In practice, the method can be applied to determine optimal transit combinations for any given budget and desired access level.

Rural transit providers face unique challenges beyond those of their urban counterparts, including worse road conditions, access to trained labor, tighter budget constraints, and higher miles per rider. To date, transportation economics and policy research is scarce for this essential service in rural geographies due to data paucity. Employing the Generalized Translog Cost-minimization model, the core innovation in this paper is presenting the first illustration of the cost-minimization strategies available to transit providers when faced with the constraints of sparsely populated geographic settings. Using a rich dataset of 42 U.S. rural transportation providers across 17 years, we estimate the operational factor (fuel, labor, materials and maintenance) substitution capabilities for the typical provider. The estimated production factor input elasticities of substitution (own, cross-price, Morishima, and Shadow) differ substantially across price changes for the three input factors. Following, this study sheds new operational cost-minimization policy insights for rural public transportation operations.