Identifying Alternative Stops for First and Last Mile Urban Travel Planning

As we move into an increasingly connected world for urban travel planning, we need to expand our concept of itinerary planning to meet the multimodal and diverse needs of today\u27s traveler. Often, urban itinerary planning applications seek to minimize route travel time between two specific places at a certain time. Our approach provides travelers with a set of optimal nearby stops that presents a number of traveler preferences in an easily comprehensible and quickly calculable manner. We display first and last mile stops that fall on a Pareto front based on multiple criteria such as travel time, number of transfers, and frequency of service. Our algorithm combines stop and routebased information to quickly present the traveler with numerous nearby quality options for their itinerary decision-making. We expand this algorithm to include multimodal itineraries with the incorporation of free-floating scooters to investigate the change in stop and itinerary characteristics. We then analyze the results on the star-shaped urban transit network of Göttingen, Germany, to show what advantages stops on the Pareto front have as well as demonstrate the increased effect on frequency and service lines when incorporating a broadened multimodal approach

Strategic Analysis of Transit Service Quality Using Fuzzy AHP Methodology

Customer satisfaction analyses are deeply based on customers’ judgments and as consequence, they can be characterized by a certain degree of uncertainty generally ascribed to coexistence of three relevant aspects: vagueness, imprecision and subjectivity. In the present paper, a methodology able to handle such uncertainty, based on the ServQual discrepancy paradigm and that uses in combined manner the AHP method and the Fuzzy Sets Theory is proposed in order to overcome limitations of the traditional service evaluation approaches. Subsequently, by considering the Italian public transit service sector, a service quality analysis is conducted and the overall transit service quality structure is described. Finally, by using the developed methodology, the evaluation of customer satisfaction for the public urban transit service provided in the city of Palermo (Italy) is performed, and the prioritizing of its critical to quality service attributes is carried out. The obtained results show that only few service attributes play an important role in performing a quality transit service

A lisbon case study

Manzolli, J. A., Oliveira, A., & Neto, M. D. C. (2021). Evaluating walkability through a multi-criteria decision analysis approach: A lisbon case study. Sustainability (Switzerland), 13(3), 1-20. [1450]. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031450New strategies to improve the quality of urban pedestrian environments are becoming increasingly important in sustainable city planning. This trend has been driven by the advantages that active mobility provides in terms of health, social, and environmental aspects. Our work explores the idea of walkability. This concept refers to the friendliness of the urban environment to pedestrian traffic. We propose a framework based on the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methodology to rank streets in terms of walkability levels. The city of Lisbon (Portugal) is the location of the streets under examination. Findings confirmed the framework’s replicability and suggested the possibility of this strategy being used as a support tool for designing urban policies.publishersversionpublishe

An Integrated Approach for Selection of Intercity Transport Schemes on Railway Networks

A major problem connected with planning the organization of trains on a railway network is the optimization of the scheme of movement, which determines the routing and the number of trains. In this paper, an integrated approach of fuzzy linear programming method and multi-criteria analysis including three steps is proposed. In the first step, we defined the schemes of transportation of intercity trains and optimized each scheme in terms of direct operating costs by taking into account the uncertainty of passenger flows and utilization of train capacity using the fuzzy linear programming method. In the second step we determined the additional technological criteria to assess the variant schemes. The Fuzzy AHP method was applied to determine the weights of criteria. Using the results obtained from Fuzzy AHP, we prioritized the variant schemes of transportation by applying the PROMETHEE method. The third step presents the optimal choice of transportation of trains on a railway network based on minimum ratio of normalized costs and normalized PROMETHEE net outranking flow. In this step, the model uses the results obtained in the first and second steps. The practicability of the integrated approach is demonstrated through the case study of Bulgaria’s railway network, and nine schemes were investigated. The model results and the real situation were compared. It was found out that the optimal scheme of intercity train transportation improves the service and reduces direct operating costs

Multi-Dimensional Assessment of Transit System Efficiency and Incentive-based Subsidy Allocation

Over the past several decades, contending with traffic congestion and air pollution has emerged as one of the imperative issues across the world. Development of a transit-oriented urban transport system has been realized by an increasing number of countries and administrations as one of the most effective strategies for mitigating congestion and pollution problems. Despite the rapid development of public transportation system, doubts regarding the efficiency of the system and financing sustainability have arisen. Significant amount of public resources have been invested into public transport; however complaints about low service quality and unreliable transit system performance have increasingly arisen from all walks of life. Evaluating transit operational efficiency from various levels and designing incentive-based mechanisms to allocate limited subsidies/resources have become one of the most imperative challenges faced by responsible authorities to sustain the public transport system development and improve its performance and levels of service. After a comprehensive review of existing literature, this dissertation aims to develop a multi-dimensional framework composed of a series of robust multi-criteria evaluation models to assess the operational and financial performance of transit systems at various levels of application (i.e. region/city level, operator level, and route level). It further contributes to bridging the gap between transit efficiency evaluation and the subsequent subsidy allocation by developing a set of incentive-based resource allocation models taking various levels of operational and financial efficiencies into consideration. Case studies using real-world transit data will be performed to validate the performance and applicability of the proposed models

A Scoping Inquiry into the Potential Contribution of Subjective Probability Theory, Dempster-Shafer Theory and Possibility Theory in Accommodating Degrees of Belief in Traveller Behaviour Research

There is a small but growing interest in traveller behaviour research on investigating ways to identify and quantify degrees of belief (as subjective probabilities or other propositions) associated with behavioural responses, especially in the context of popular travel choice methods such as stated choice experiments, as a way of adding to our understanding of decision making in real-world contexts that are associated with inevitable risk and uncertainty. This paper reviews three major theories that are not well known in the transportation literature that have been developed in psychology and decision sciences to accommodate belief, namely Subjective Probability Theory, Dempster-Shafer Theory and Possibility Theory. We focus on how degrees of belief are measured in these theories. The key elements of each theoretical approach are compared, including their mathematical properties and evidence patterns. Despite their being few applications to date in transportation, the review promotes the relevance of accounting for degrees of belief in travel choice analysis.Australian Research Council Discovery Progra

Land Suitability Analysis as Multi Criteria Decision Making to Support the Egyptian Urban Development

Sustainability in urban development is considered as a main concrete stone that effect directly the quality of life for its users. Land Suitability Analysis (LSA) using GIS as a multi criteria support tool reveals the best alternatives for the suitability of sustainable land development. Urban planners working under the umbrella of sustainability using recent technology should contribute their work directly to LSA. This paper aims to develop a new technique to be used by planner to reach best alternative for five main urban sectors (agriculture, Industry, Trade, Tourism, & Residential) using GIS as a multi criteria decision support tool (MCDS), accordingly choosing best city location will be accurately and analyzed upon LSA studies. LSA and MCDS are going to be applied on one survey unit map called Monof along Cairo – Alexandria Road. Results showed that different alternatives could be applied on the area of interest, and all of them are sustainable, but choosing the best deepened on the priority of querying the development sector. The paper suggests a pilot method for land development planning and choosing best city location that would be a guide for the governmental planning organization to support in taking right and analyzed planning decisions