Metro systems : Construction, operation and impacts

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

New fixed links across the Öresund – what is the point?

During the last years, several investigations on new fixed links across the Öresund have been conducted and presented to the public. These new fixed links intend to supplement the already existing bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen, the Öresund Bridge. We review these proposals and outline their intended function in the regional cross-border transport system as well as the European transport system (TEN-T) in order to identify the objective(s) of the proposals. New fixed links are generally proposed as a “one-solution-only” alternative, focusing more on the proposed alternative, than identifying the transport problem. The overall aim of the paper is to achieve a deeper understanding of the basic transport-planning question: What is the problem? Based on a review of reports, we conclude that four key-objectives exist for a new fixed link across the Öresund. Each proposal meets one or more of these objectives

Assessing the dynamic vulnerability of an urban rail transit system and a case study of Beijing, China

Urban rail transit is the backbone of urban transportation, and thus it is significant to understand its vulnerability, i.e., whether the system can still maintain normal operations when facing operational disturbances with different magnitudes. To this end, this paper proposes a network vulnerability assessment method with the joint consideration of static network topology and dynamic travel demand. The method includes an accessibility-based identification of station importance with time-varying passenger demand and a new dynamic vulnerability evaluation index. An empirical analysis is carried out by taking the rail transit system of Beijing, China as an example. Results show that the distribution of high-importance stations varies with the time of day, affected by both static topology and hourly-changing passenger flow. Under the disturbance of operation delay, the impact of high-importance stations on the network vulnerability changes with the increase of delayed travel demand. It is also found that some stations that serve as bridges (i.e., reasonable paths link the origin station and destination) and are visited by large passenger flow have the greatest impact on network vulnerability. Network performance degradation is obviously segmented and stratified in the case of interval continuous failure. The disruption between different lines is the main reason for system performance degradation, and some important stations within the line will act as catalysts to accelerate the performance degradation. This method provides a reference for measuring dynamic passenger flow-related network vulnerability and supplies the field with a new vulnerability evaluation index.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figure

Designing and Operating Safe and Secure Transit Systems: Assessing Current Practices in the United States and Abroad, MTI Report 04-05

Public transit systems around the world have for decades served as a principal venue for terrorist acts. Today, transit security is widely viewed as an important public policy issue and is a high priority at most large transit systems and at smaller systems operating in large metropolitan areas. Research on transit security in the United States has mushroomed since 9/11; this study is part of that new wave of research. This study contributes to our understanding of transit security by (1) reviewing and synthesizing nearly all previously published research on transit terrorism; (2) conducting detailed case studies of transit systems in London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.; (3) interviewing federal officials here in the United States responsible for overseeing transit security and transit industry representatives both here and abroad to learn about efforts to coordinate and finance transit security planning; and (4) surveying 113 of the largest transit operators in the United States. Our major findings include: (1) the threat of transit terrorism is probably not universal—most major attacks in the developed world have been on the largest systems in the largest cities; (2) this asymmetry of risk does not square with fiscal politics that seek to spread security funding among many jurisdictions; (3) transit managers are struggling to balance the costs and (uncertain) benefits of increased security against the costs and (certain) benefits of attracting passengers; (4) coordination and cooperation between security and transit agencies is improving, but far from complete; (5) enlisting passengers in surveillance has benefits, but fearful passengers may stop using public transit; (6) the role of crime prevention through environmental design in security planning is waxing; and (7) given the uncertain effectiveness of antitransit terrorism efforts, the most tangible benefits of increased attention to and spending on transit security may be a reduction in transit-related person and property crimes

Performance Measures to Assess Resiliency and Efficiency of Transit Systems

Transit agencies are interested in assessing the short-, mid-, and long-term performance of infrastructure with the objective of enhancing resiliency and efficiency. This report addresses three distinct aspects of New Jersey’s Transit System: 1) resiliency of bridge infrastructure, 2) resiliency of public transit systems, and 3) efficiency of transit systems with an emphasis on paratransit service. This project proposed a conceptual framework to assess the performance and resiliency for bridge structures in a transit network before and after disasters utilizing structural health monitoring (SHM), finite element (FE) modeling and remote sensing using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). The public transit systems in NY/NJ were analyzed based on their vulnerability, resiliency, and efficiency in recovery following a major natural disaster

Transportation for an Aging Population: Promoting Mobility and Equity for Low-Income Seniors

This study explores the travel patterns, needs, and mobility problems faced by diverse low-income, inner-city older adults in Los Angeles in order to identify solutions to their mobility challenges. The study draws information from: (1) a systematic literature review of the travel patterns of older adults; (2) a review of municipal policies and services geared toward older adult mobility in six cities; (3) a quantitative analysis of the mobility patterns of older adults in California using the California Household Travel Survey; and (4) empirical work with 81 older adults residing in and around Los Angeles’ inner-city Westlake neighborhood, who participated in focus groups, interviews, and walkabouts around their neighborhood

Disruption analytics in urban metro systems with large-scale automated data

Urban metro systems are frequently affected by disruptions such as infrastructure malfunctions, rolling stock breakdowns and accidents. Such disruptions give rise to delays, congestion and inconvenience for public transport users, which in turn, lead to a wider range of negative impacts on the social economy and wellbeing. This PhD thesis aims to improve our understanding of disruption impacts and improve the ability of metro operators to detect and manage disruptions by using large-scale automated data. The crucial precondition of any disruption analytics is to have accurate information about the location, occurrence time, duration and propagation of disruptions. In pursuit of this goal, the thesis develops statistical models to detect disruptions via deviations in trains’ headways relative to their regular services. Our method is a unique contribution in the sense that it is based on automated vehicle location data (data-driven) and the probabilistic framework is effective to detect any type of service interruptions, including minor delays that last just a few minutes. As an important research outcome, the thesis delivers novel analyses of the propagation progress of disruptions along metro lines, thus enabling us to distinguish primary and secondary disruptions as well as recovery interventions performed by operators. The other part of the thesis provides new insights for quantifying disruption impacts and measuring metro vulnerability. One of our key messages is that in metro systems there are factors influencing both the occurrence of disruptions and their outcomes. With such confounding factors, we show that causal inference is a powerful tool to estimate unbiased impacts on passenger demand and journey time, which is also capable of quantifying the spatial-temporal propagation of disruption impacts within metro networks. The causal inference approaches are applied to empirical studies based on the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (MTR). Our conclusions can assist researchers and practitioners in two applications: (i) the evaluation of metro performance such as service reliability, system vulnerability and resilience, and (ii) the management of future disruptions.Open Acces