A Review of Trip Planning Systems.

This report reviews current information provision in all modes of transport and assesses the needs for and benefits of trip planning systems. The feasibility of trip planning systems is discussed given the current state of technology and information availability and supply. The review was stimulated by technological developments in telecommunications and information technology which are providing the possibility of a greatly enhanced quality of information to aid trip planning decisions. Amongst the conclusions reached were the following: Current information provision is considered deficient in many respects. Travellers are often unaware of alternative routes or services and many are unable to acquire adequate information from one source especially for multi-modal journeys. In addition, there is a lack of providing real time information where it is required (bus stops and train stations) and of effective interaction of static and real time information. Most of the projects, which integrate static and dynamic data, are single mode systems. Therefore there is a need for an integrated trip planning system which can inform and guide on all aspects of transport. Trip planning systems can provide assistance in trip planning (before and during the journey) using one or a number of modes of travel, taking into account travellers preferences and constraints, and effectively integrating static and dynamic data. Trip planning systems could adversely affect traffic demand as people who become aware of new opportunities might be encouraged to make more journeys. It could also affect travellers choice as a result of over-saturation of information, over-reaction to predictive information, and concentration on the same 'best' routes. However, it can be argued, based on existing evidence, that such a system can benefit travellers, and transport operators as well as the public sector responsible for executing transport policies. Travellers can benefit by obtaining adequate information to help them in making optimal decisions and reducing uncertainty and stress associated with travel. Public transport operators can benefit by making their services known to customers, leading to increased patronage. Public transport authorities can use the supply of information to execute their transport policies and exercise more control over traffic management

A stochastic user-operator assignment game for microtransit service evaluation: A case study of Kussbus in Luxembourg

This paper proposes a stochastic variant of the stable matching model from Rasulkhani and Chow [1] which allows microtransit operators to evaluate their operation policy and resource allocations. The proposed model takes into account the stochastic nature of users' travel utility perception, resulting in a probabilistic stable operation cost allocation outcome to design ticket price and ridership forecasting. We applied the model for the operation policy evaluation of a microtransit service in Luxembourg and its border area. The methodology for the model parameters estimation and calibration is developed. The results provide useful insights for the operator and the government to improve the ridership of the service.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1912.0198

The philosophy and practice of Taktfahrplan: a case-study of the East Coast Main Line.

Executive Summary This Working Paper has three purposes, represented by three Parts: - to explain the principles of the Taktfahrplan approach to railway timetabling; - to summarise the implications of the background research on the structure of the network; and - to describe the exercise of constructing a Taktfahrplan for the East Coast Main Line that formed the case-study of the potential benefits of such a scheme compared with the existing timetable. In Part I the broad principles and objectives are first outlined, and the advantages and disadvantages discussed [§ 1.1,1.2]. A Taktfahrplan is based on standard hours and the careful, network-wide coordination of sewices. It is recognised that ultimately the choice between this and conventional timetabling methods must depend on an evaluation of the loss of present flexibility to adjust to time-specific market demands against the gains from enhanced connectivity and from the fact of regularity. Issues concerning resources and the management of peak periods are also explained. Terminology is then dealt with because words and phrases are being used with imprecise and various meanings [§1.3]. There follows a detailed account of the arithmetic rules through which the ideal relationships between train (and bus) sewices can be attained, together with an explanation of the measures that can be taken to make the best compromises in the face of the characteristics of the real network - or to adjust it over time [§ 1.4]. In Part 2 the research to highlight features of the underlying demand for travel is described. This is not a necessary component of strategic timetable planning, but it is argued that it is desirable in order both to break free from the historical baggage and to seize the business, environmental and social-policy opportunities that a 'clean- sheet' timetable would present [§2.1]. The provisional findings from this work (it was left incomplete for reasons that are explained) are then deployed to form the skeleton of a national network connecting 100 important centres with 158 links. This is followed by an analysis of the very variable standards of the rail timetable on those links and of the road competition and by an account of some first thoughts as to how a full-scale Taktfahrplan might start to be developed on this network [§2.2]. This emphasises the inter-relationships between sewices and the inescapable consequences for pathing trains, once it is accepted that sensible spacing of services and striving for good connectivity are more important than optimising routes on a self-contained basis. It was thought appropriate to include a summary of the findings regarding the low-density end of the current rail system in order to indicate the issues that Taktfahrplan might raise in this respect [§2.3]. The East Coast case-study is presented in Part 3. Some technical matters are explained first, including the key point that the exercise used the Viriato timetabling software employed by the Swiss Federal Railways (and many other systems) to construct Taktfahrpliine [§3.1]. Successive sub-parts then describe groups of services: long-distance [§3.2], services within Scotland [§3.3], services in North East England [§3.4], the trans-Pennine network [§3.5] and some of the Yorkshire services [§3.6]

Westwood Multimodal Transportation Plan

Westwood is experiencing an industrial regeneration that will change the way the area is utilized by the surrounding communities. To be proactive, Henrico County is planning for the future by creating an overlay zoning district and striving for a multimodal environment to ensure the area grows in a sustainable manner. This plan evaluates the study area, retrieves community engagement, and makes recommendations on streetscape design and public transit improvements to create a multimodal Westwood. Study area observations provided evidence that the streets in Westwood need to be redesigned to accommodate more for pedestrians and cyclists. Community outreach in the form of a survey was conducted to gather input on how the streetscape should be designed and what elements of the study area need the most attention. Results of the surveys and observations were analyzed and used to build the recommendations made for Westwood. Various types of funding options are presented to implement this plan. Sustainable, connected, and integrated transportation is essential to success and livability of the fast-growing study area. The plan aims to supply the knowledge needed to create a livable and thriving Westwood

Timely Data Delivery in a Realistic Bus Network

Abstract—WiFi-enabled buses and stops may form the backbone of a metropolitan delay tolerant network, that exploits nearby communications, temporary storage at stops, and predictable bus mobility to deliver non-real time information. This paper studies the problem of how to route data from its source to its destination in order to maximize the delivery probability by a given deadline. We assume to know the bus schedule, but we take into account that randomness, due to road traffic conditions or passengers boarding and alighting, affects bus mobility. We propose a simple stochastic model for bus arrivals at stops, supported by a study of real-life traces collected in a large urban network. A succinct graph representation of this model allows us to devise an optimal (under our model) single-copy routing algorithm and then extend it to cases where several copies of the same data are permitted. Through an extensive simulation study, we compare the optimal routing algorithm with three other approaches: minimizing the expected traversal time over our graph, minimizing the number of hops a packet can travel, and a recently-proposed heuristic based on bus frequencies. Our optimal algorithm outperforms all of them, but most of the times it essentially reduces to minimizing the expected traversal time. For values of deadlines close to the expected delivery time, the multi-copy extension requires only 10 copies to reach almost the performance of the costly flooding approach. I

Bicycle traffic and its interaction with motorized traffic in an agent-based transport simulation framework

Cycling as an inexpensive, healthy, and efficient mode of transport for everyday traveling is becoming increasingly popular. While many cities are promoting cycling, it is rarely included in transport models and systematic policy evaluation procedures. The purpose of this study is to extend the agent-based transport simulation framework MATSim to be able to model bicycle traffic more realistically. The network generation procedure is enriched to include attributes that are relevant for cyclists (e.g. road surfaces, slopes). Travel speed computations, plan scoring, and routing are enhanced to take into account these infrastructure attributes. The scoring, i.e. the evaluation of simulated daily travel plans, is furthermore enhanced to account for traffic events that emerge in the simulation (e.g. passings by cars), which have an additional impact on cyclists’ decisions. Inspired by an evolutionary computing perspective, a randomizing router was implemented to enable cyclists to find realistic routes. It is discussed in detail why this approach is both feasible in practical terms and also conceptually consistent with MATSim’s co-evolutionary simulation approach. It is shown that meaningful simulation results are obtained for an illustrative scenario, which indicates that the developed methods will make real-world scenarios more realistic in terms of the representation of bicycle traffic. Based on the exclusive reliance on open data, the approach is spatially transferable

Weak nodes detection in urban transport systems: Planning for resilience in Singapore

The availability of massive data-sets describing human mobility offers the possibility to design simulation tools to monitor and improve the resilience of transport systems in response to traumatic events such as natural and man-made disasters (e.g. floods terroristic attacks, etc...). In this perspective, we propose ACHILLES, an application to model people's movements in a given transport system mode through a multiplex network representation based on mobility data. ACHILLES is a web-based application which provides an easy-to-use interface to explore the mobility fluxes and the connectivity of every urban zone in a city, as well as to visualize changes in the transport system resulting from the addition or removal of transport modes, urban zones, and single stops. Notably, our application allows the user to assess the overall resilience of the transport network by identifying its weakest node, i.e. Urban Achilles Heel, with reference to the ancient Greek mythology. To demonstrate the impact of ACHILLES for humanitarian aid we consider its application to a real-world scenario by exploring human mobility in Singapore in response to flood prevention.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, IEEE Data Science and Advanced Analytic