Abstract

The focus of Work Package 4 is on the integrated management of interchanges. Based on case studies, stakeholder interviews, and literature, this work package analysed the organisation and operation of interchanges in terms of planning, operational functionality, management, practicalities, services and efficiency."br/"The research has shown that currently there are few examples of regulations or guidance that cover the design, construction, management and operation of interchanges as a whole. The interchange facility itself and the interchange zone are often considered to be ‘grey areas’ in transport planning; and the roles and responsibilities of those interested in the interchange are often dominated by the regulations of each mode. The design, construction and management of interchanges would benefit from closer interaction between the public and private sectors as there are opportunities for commercially successful utilisation of the space available in the terminals for services provided by the private sector, and thus make the interchanges economically more viable. In addition, partnerships with private sector can introduce business models which can complement the skills of the public sector. Public consultation should be carried out for the integration of the opinions and concerns of relevant stakeholders in the decision-making process in order to make the process more transparent, to gather more input on which to base decisions, and to create support for the decisions that are made. The positive impacts of an interchange on local economy are more likely to occur if there is an integrated development plan linking the transport function with the urban and economic functions. However, as the interchanges are typically located in the town centre, it is difficult to assess whether new developments in retail, housing or offices were direct results of the interchanges or if they would have been developed within town centre development context anyway."br/"Clear information systems are essential for making a public transport journey easy, efficient and stress-free. It is proposed that information between different operators and modes should be integrated to provide relevant information to all in a centralised and harmonised manner. Integrated, smart ticketing makes transferring easier for the traveller and thus promotes the use of public transport. It is a matter that needs to be addressed by the regional authorities and all stakeholders. Sustainable interchange design and energy efficiency are not only relevant for environmental purposes, but can also have positive impact on both social and economic elements. None of the present rating systems to assess energy efficiency are specifically developed for terminals or interchanges, but many of the tools can be applied successfully. For the end user, i.e. the traveller, however, the main point is neither the energy efficiency nor the carbon footprint of the interchange, but the functionality of the interchange for her/his needs, good air quality and comfortable atmosphere, and appropriate services."br

Abstract

RelStat12, 12th Annual International Conference on Reliability and Statistics in Transportation and Communications, Riga, LETTONIE, 17-/10/2012 - 20/10/2012; Along a transit line, vehicle traffic and passenger traffic are jointly subject to variability in travel time and vehicle load hence crowding. The paper provides a stochastic model of passenger physical time and generalized time, including waiting on platform and in-vehicle run time from access to egress station. Five sources of variability are addressed: (i) vehicle headway which can vary between the stations provided that each service run maintains its rank throughout the local distributions of headways; (ii) vehicle order in the schedule of operations; (iii) vehicle capacity; (iv) passenger arrival time; (v) passenger sensitivity to quality of service. The perspective of the operator, which pertains to vehicle runs, is distinguished from the user's one at the disaggregate level of the individual trip.

Abstract

ISTS 2014 - 4th International Symposium of Transport Simulation, Ajaccio, FRANCE, 01-/06/2014 - 04/06/2014; Buses on the same route tend to bunch when the system is uncontrolled. This lack of regularity leads to an increase in the average passenger waiting time, increases delays and makes travel times uncertain. A wide variety of solutions have been proposed to maintain accurate bus system performance. Unfortunately, if a strategy is applied permanently, it could detract from the entire transport system efficiency. That is why a transit operator needs an accurate forecast of the route in order to intervene before the bus route is too disrupted to be restored to regularity. This paper aims to predict critical situations in real-time forecasting of a bus route state. To accomplish this, we propose to take advantage of both theoretical and empirical information (model and data) using data assimilation (a particle filter). On one hand, a stochastic dynamic bus model forecasts future bus route states. On the other hand, archived data calibrates the model parameters while real-time data provides information about the actual route state. The methodology is applied to a real case study thanks to the quality data provided by TriMet (the Portland, Oregon transit district). Predictions are finally evaluated by an a posteriori comparison with real data. The results highlight that the method leads to a valid forecast of a bus route state with a 8 minutes time window. This duration is sufficient to predict critical situations, especially bus bunching. Further research would have to consider deterministic travel times from a traffic model instead of the distributions in order to maintain correlation between travel times on links. In that case, the assimilation process would focus on the surrounding traffic flow, also potentially available in the Portland data.