Behavior of taxi customers in hailing vacant taxis: a nested logit model for policy analysis

This study models and examines the taxi customers' preferences for hailing vacant taxis on streets. A stated preference survey was conducted to randomly select and interview 1242 taxi customers at taxi stands and pedestrians on streets, who had experiences of taking taxis recently, about their choices under different given hypothetical scenarios. In total, 4968 observations were collected and used for developing the discrete choice models for the analysis. To account for the potential correlations among alternatives, two nested logit models are developed, calibrated, and compared with a standard multinomial logit model in the investigation. The results of likelihood ratio test demonstrate that one of the developed nested logit models is better than the standard multinomial logit model to describe the search behavior of taxi customers. The model results also show that the walking time to and the waiting time at the location for hailing taxis, the extra travel time to the destination because of local circulation for finding a way from the pickup location heading to a passenger's destination, as well as the taxi customers' perceptions for walking to and waiting at taxi stands were found as significant factors to influence their decisions. In addition, the results of market segmentation analysis illustrate the variations in taxi-search strategies of taxi customers in different districts and regions. Some policy implications on introducing more taxi stands and improving the utilization rates of taxi stands are also discussed. We believe that the proposed models, findings, and discussion are useful for developing micro-simulation models to evaluate the performance of road traffic networks with taxi services and developing simulation-based optimization models to answer policy questions related to taxi services. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.postprin

The Study of the development of bus routing plan for the Western province

Effective design of transit routes and service frequencies can decrease the overall cost of providing transit services, which generally comprises passenger costs and operator costs. Usually route design is done with route scheduling and efficiency of the service is significantly depends on the route network. However, the route design problem is not straightforward due to its multi-objective nature, non-linearity and non-convexity of the objective function. The relation of the constraints and decision variables to the objective function are non-linear. Non-convexities are illustrated by the fact that more buses can be deployed without decreasing total travel time by changing the route length. Non-availability of reliable passenger demand data is another constraint. At the first stage of this study, primary bus routes that operate between Divisional Secretariats Divisions were considered. Primary route network was developed based on the passenger demand distribution in the existing system. An algorithm was developed to generate the route network with the condition that all nodes (zone centroids) have to be served at least by one bus route. In this algorithm, the maximum demand O-D pair in the demand matrix is considered first. Routes were assigned along the minimum path between those two zones assuming all the passengers would select the shortest travel path. Any inter-zonal travel demand between zones that falls within the route under consideration is also added to this route and taken off from the demand matrix. After generating the primary network, user is given the choice to fine-tune the network by using a set of algorithms for route merging, adding links and route sprouting. Fleet requirement, passenger transfers saving after each modification, revenue and operating costs per bus trip were calculated to evaluate route network. To determine the passenger demand distribution, an Origin-Destination matrix was developed based on bus passenger interviews and available socio-economic information. Passenger demand distribution over the study area was obtained based on a model calibrated using household & roadside interview data and travel costs between node pairs in the selected zones. It can be seen that most of the existing routes are operating in the high demand corridors. But there are new routes to be introduced to newly developed zones in the study are

Development of passenger demand o-d matrix for public bus transportation in western province

The objective of this research is to develop a passenger demand Origin-Destination (O-D) matrix for public bus transport in the Western Province. This O-D matrix can be used to redesign a new network of bus routes for the Colombo Metropolitan Region. Non availability of detailed service information and passenger demand is some of the constraints encountered. The state own bus companies have limited information on bus service while the private sector has only the number of buses that have registered in each route and the number of buses operated each day. This paper identifies the input parameters that are required for creating O-D Matrices. These parameters have to be obtained from the limited amount of information available with the operators and the survey data such as bus passenger interviews, number and size of household's etc. for different zones. This paper describes a methodology to be used for the development of an O-D matrix subject to the constraints regarding availability of information

Development of a methodology for bus route network analysis for the western province

The selection of an optimal public transport route structure for a transit network is a combinatorial type optimization problem. Therefore finding a good solution would not be based on theoretical network analysis methodologies. All passengers would prefer to have a direct route connecting each node pair so that it will reduce their travel cost and transfer cost. Then the level of service will also increase. On the other hand, it will increase the operator cost. Further, the demand between some of the node pairs will be very low and a direct bus route cannot be justified. The operator would always prefer to operate on a route with a higher demand and higher income. Therefore, there should be a compromise between these two situations. The optimum solution should be found that satisfies both parties. Design of such a route network cannot be done manually due to the complexity of the road network and the demand distribution pattern