The Transportation Dividend: Transit Investments and the Massachusetts Economy

As home to America's first subway, Boston has been a transit-oriented city for more than a century. In fact, much of our regional economic success is due to the connectivity that a transit system provides. It is no coincidence that the area served by the MBTA houses almost 70 percent of the state's population, offers 74 percent of the jobs, and generates 84 percent of Massachusetts's gross domestic product. The MBTA is the backbone of our economy and any successful strategy for continued growth and prosperity for the region must begin with smart investment in this system.Luckily, the calculus is straightforward as the benefits from our transit system far outweigh the costs we dedicate to support it. A new report from A Better City, made possible through support from both the Barr Foundation and The Boston Foundation, measured the MBTA's performance and economic impact. It found that through travel time and cost savings, vehicular crashes avoided and reduced auto emissions, the MBTA provides an estimated $11.4 billion in value to Greater Boston each year for both transit users and non-users alike. Boston residents experience all of these benefits from the T's annual operating budget of approximately$2 billion.The report also considered the alternative, examining what would it cost if our transit system did not exist. Our economy would require the capital cost of nearly 2,300 additional lane miles of roads and 400,000 more parking spaces. If we needed to build that today, the cost for this vehicular infrastructure would be over $15 billion. The MBTA is a bargain today and for the future

Strategies for building, managing and implementing geographic information systems (GIS) capabilities in transit agencies

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (p. 336-345).by Kamal T. Azar.Ph.D

Urban Public Transportation Planning with Endogenous Passenger Demand

An effective and efficient public transportation system is crucial to people\u27s mobility, economic production, and social activities. The Operations Research community has been studying transit system optimization for the past decades. With disruptions from the private sector, especially the parking operators, ride-sharing platforms, and micro-mobility services, new challenges and opportunities have emerged. This thesis contributes to investigating the interaction of the public transportation systems with significant private sector players considering endogenous passenger choice. To be more specific, this thesis aims to optimize public transportation systems considering the interaction with parking operators, competition and collaboration from ride-sharing platforms and micro-mobility platforms. Optimization models, algorithms and heuristic solution approaches are developed to design the transportation systems. Parking operator plays an important role in determining the passenger travel mode. The capacity and pricing decisions of parking and transit operators are investigated under a game-theoretic framework. A mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model is formulated to simulate the player\u27s strategy to maximize profits considering endogenous passenger mode choice. A three-step solution heuristic is developed to solve the large-scale MINLP problem. With emerging transportation modes like ride-sharing services and micro-mobility platforms, this thesis aims to co-optimize the integrated transportation system. To improve the mobility for residents in the transit desert regions, we co-optimize the public transit and ride-sharing services to provide a more environment-friendly and equitable system. Similarly, we design an integrated system of public transit and micro-mobility services to provide a more sustainable transportation system in the post-pandemic world

Optimization and Technology-Based Strategies to Improve Public Transit Performance Accounting for Demand Distribution

Public transit is important to societies worldwide. The operation of public transit systems is generally associated with great benefits for the users, but there are also cases in which these systems demonstrate inefficient performance. Quantifying transit performance is an important area of research over the last decades. This dissertation presents models to improve transit system performance through optimization techniques and new technologies, recognizing the effects of non-uniform distribution of demand over space and time. The contributions span fixed route transit services and on-demand transit, as well as models for flexible transit operations that lie in between. Regarding fixed route systems, a methodology is proposed to estimate the number of passengers being left-behind subway train vehicles due to overcrowding. Methods to identify appropriate time periods and locations for studying this phenomenon are presented. The effects of overcrowding on passenger waiting times are also investigated. The challenging case of transit networks where passengers tap-in only upon entrance is analyzed, adding a new methodology to a very short list of similar studies and enhancing previous work in this field. For demand responsive systems, this dissertation focuses on optimizing the operation of paratransit services through coordination with alternative providers in order to decrease high operating costs of such a service. The analysis includes a heuristic-based method. The proposed model is more detailed than existing aggregated methods and is able to perform well in high demand levels, unlike existing exact approaches. This part of the dissertation also assists in making transportation network companies a complementary part of public transit, rather than a competitor. Finally, flexible transit systems are studied to identify the operational and demand related characteristics of a service area that could serve as indicators of such systems\u27 efficient performance. The focus here is on route deviation flexible services. Continuous approximation is used to model this flexible system. A new optimized hybrid transit system with elements of both fixed route and flexible services is proposed. Finally, it is highlighted that the current COVID-19 pandemic has proven the need for public transit systems that could be adjusted to accommodate changes in transit demand

Water Taxis in Hong Kong: Their Potential and Future

This project, completed at the WPI Hong Kong Project Center in collaboration with the Harbour Business Forum and Designing Hong Kong, evaluates the future of water taxis in Victoria Harbour. Water taxis exist in Hong Kong, and our team found that there is demand for this service; we observed and interviewed providers of current water taxi type services as well as gauged public interest through a survey. Based on frequent consultation with public and private stakeholders, we developed a vision for the future of water taxis. We recommend a phased development plan for the organization of water taxis in Hong Kong

Testing of a first-generation dynamically programmable gate array

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-58).by Edward F. Tau.M.Eng