Posted in November 2013

The value of enhanced service reliability of public transport

Service reliability is an important quality characteristic in public transport. However,
in cost-benefit analyses (CBA), this quality aspect is rarely taken into account explicitly.
It is more common to calculate vehicle indicators (e.g. punctuality) instead of passenger
focused metrics. In this paper, we demonstrate how to calculate the passenger impacts of
service unreliability. In an actual case, the replacement of a bus line by a light rail line in Utrecht, we proved that our method is valuable and can be applied directly into practice.  By calculating the benefits of the improved service reliability of the proposed light rail line, which were about 2/3 of all benefits, the cost benefit ratio was positive, which convinced the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Environment to support the project by €110 million.

Read the full paper: RailCopenhagen 2013 Value of service reliability paper Van Oort

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