Posts tagged demand responisve transit
Autonomous vehicles meet Public Transport: the future of automated vehicles in public transport
The technology of automated vehicles is developing rapidly and the vehicles offer a lot of benefits. They claim to be safer, more environmentally friendly and they can provide transport for everyone, including people who currently don’t have access to transportation. The focus seemed to be on the development of automated private vehicles, but the focus seems to shift from private transportation to automated public transportation.
The Netherlands has been pro-active in testing automated vehicles on public roads. This paper gives an overview of the projects and pilots with automated vehicles as public transport in the Netherlands as well as the remaining research questions. Also, preliminary results of passenger related studies regarding expected ridership and perception are discussed in this paper. Information was gathered by performing desk research and conducting interviews with twelve public transport authorities. During these interviews we spoke about threats and opportunities as well as feasibility, visions and knowledge gaps. Subsequently we spoke about what the future of public transport would look like and how we can anticipate on these upcoming technologies. Lastly we asked about (future) pilot locations with automated vehicles. These locations are included on a map of the Netherlands.
In many places in the Netherlands there is or has already been experiments with automated vehicles (3 – 4). These pilots, experiments or demonstrations are often focused on the technical aspects. However, the challenges regarding the deployment of an automated vehicle extends beyond the technical level. The interviewed parties indicate that it is important to focus, with the upcoming pilots, more on the traveler and the position of the vehicle within the existing public transport network. The interviewed parties stress that it is important to think about the long-term implementation.
The current public transport contracts as we know them, will likely change with the arrival of automated vehicles. Concessions are already becoming more flexible and space is created to experiment with new concepts such as automated vehicles. During a concession, it is possible to experiment alongside the established service and a transition path can be mapped out. Tendering an automated shuttle has not (yet) taken place in the Netherlands (5). The public transport authorities are clear about the future: automated vehicles in public transport do not come with a ‘big bang’ but will gradually find their way.
Check the ETC presentation of Reanne Boersma, Arthur Scheltes and Niels van Oort HERE
Impacts of replacing a fixed transit line by a Demand Responsive Transit system
The diffusion of the smartphone and the urban sprawl is pushing both private and public actors to revisit the concept of the demand-responsive transit (DRT). Mokumflex is a DRT pilot program that replaced the regular bus service in low-density areas of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, for 12 months. The close collaboration with the private enterprise that conducted the system but also with the local bus operator allowed the authors to have access to precise databases, giving this article empirical information for both the situation before and after the implementation. These insights help to understand DRT systems and support (future) design of DRT and transit systems. A few indicators were chosen for the comparison: distances, ridership, costs, Greenhouse Gases (GHG), emissions and population’s perception. The ridership dropped, however, for being “demand-tailored”, the mileage per passenger reduced, improving the costs and GHG emissions. In regards to population’s perception, the system enjoyed a good evaluation.
Find the Thredbo presentation of Felipe Coutinho HERE and the paper HERE
Willingness to share rides in on-demand services for different market segments
The impact of on-demand urban transport services on traffic reduction will depend on the willingness to share (WTS) of individuals. However, the extent to which individuals are willing to share remains largely unknown. By means of a stated preference experiment, this study analyses the WTS of respondents by comparing their preferences towards individual and pooled rides. Urban Dutch individuals are the target population of this study. In our research, we: 1) quantify the WTS in on-demand services with different number of passengers to disentangle the sharing aspect from related time-cost considerations (e.g. detours); 2) investigate which distinct (latent) market segments exist in regards to the WTS and value of time (VOT) for these on-demand services, and 3) analyse which socioeconomic characteristics and travel patterns can help explain taste variations. Despite the large majority of current on-demand rides being individual, we found that less than one third of respondents have strong preferences for not sharing their rides. Also, we found
heterogeneity not only in the values of the WTS of individuals, but also in the way this disutility is perceived (per-ride or proportional to the in-vehicle time).
Find the Thredbo presentation of Maria Alonso-Gonzalez HERE
Does ride-sourcing absorb the demand for car and public transport in Amsterdam?
The emergence of innovative mobility services, is changing the way people travel in urban areas. Such systems offer on-demand service (door-to-door or stop-to-stop, individual or shared) to passengers. In addition to providing flexible services to passengers, past studies suggested that such services could effectively absorb the demand for private cars thereby reducing network congestion and demand for parking. This study investigates the potential of a ride-sourcing service to absorb the demand for public transport and private cars for the city of Amsterdam. Results indicate that a ride-sourcing vehicle could potentially serve the demand currently served by nine privately owned vehicles and that a fleet size equivalent to 1.3% and 2.6% of the total public transport trips, are required to provide door-to-door and stop-to-stop times comparable to those yielded by the current public transport system. Results from the modal shift indicate that most PT trips are substituted by active modes and most car trips are substituted by ride-sourcing service.
Find the MT-ITS paper and presentation of Jishnu Narayan HERE and HERE
Masterclass Toekomst van het OV Ministerie I en W
In de Masterclass van het Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat buigen Henk Meurs (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) en Niels van Oort (Technische Universiteit Delft) zich over ontwikkelingen in het openbaar vervoer. ‘Het is aan ons, wetenschappers, om de ontwikkelingen, effecten en kansen in het OV in kaart te brengen. IenW kan met pilots een aantal lessen leren om MaaS te stimuleren. IenW-ers moeten niet onderschatten welke voorbeeldrol ze vervullen.’
Bekijk het interview en de presentatie
Passenger Route Choice and Assignment Model for Combined Fixed and Flexible Public Transport Systems
The recent technological innovations have given rise to innovative mobility solutions. Public transport systems combining such services need novel models for the design of services. We develop a multimodal route choice and assignment model for combined use of line/schedule based public transport systems (fixed public transport) and demand responsive services (flexible public transport). The model takes into account the dynamic demand-supply interaction using an iterative learning model framework. Flexible public transport can be used to perform any part of the trip, ranging from a first/last mile service to an exclusive direct door-to-door connection. The developed model is implemented in an agent based simulation framework. The model is applied to the test network of Sioux Falls. Results, in terms of modal split, fleet utilization, and passenger waiting times are analysed for scenarios in which fixed and flexible public transport are offered as competing modes as well as potential complementing modes.
Find the CASPT presentation HERE
Van B naar Anders
Op woensdag 30 mei organiseerde de Rli naar aanleiding van zijn advies een symposium. Tijdens dit symposium is het advies toegelicht en met betrokkenen uit de mobiliteitswereld besproken. Daarbij wordt stilgestaan bij de toekomst van mobiliteit en infrastructuur, de bestuurlijke praktijk en bij innovatie en verduurzaming van ons mobiliteitssysteem.
Vind alle bijdragen en verslag HIER
De presentatie over de toekomst van mobiliteit van Niels van Oort vind je HIER
The Potential of Demand Responsive Transport as a Complement to Public Transport
Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) offers a collective flexible travel alternative that can potentially complement Fixed Transit (FT). The combination of an on-demand and line-based services holds the promise of improved mobility and increased service coverage. However, insofar it remains unknown whether DRT services deliver such much anticipated improvements.
This study presents an assessment framework to evaluate the performance of DRT and related changes in accessibility and performs an empirical analysis for a recently introduced DRT service in the Netherlands. The framework includes a performance benchmark between DRT and FT based on the computation of generalized journey times of the DRT rides and the FT alternatives, and it can help identify whether DRT is used as complement or substitute of FT.
The framework covers the spatial and temporal dimensions, and the explicit consideration of rejected trips is an integral part of the evaluation. Results suggest large accessibility improvements for DRT users, especially for some underserved origin-destination pairs.
Read more of this work of Maria J. Alonso Gonzalez: TRB Paper and TRB Presentation
Performance assessment of fixed and flexible public transport in a multi agent simulation framework
The emergence of innovative mobility solutions that offer flexible transport services, is changing the way urban public transport systems will be designed. Such mobility solutions offer on demand transport services and hence can solve the problems inherent with traditional line based and schedule based public transport systems. It is essential to understand the dynamics of this new demand-supply market with co-existing and competing fixed and flexible public transport. However, the performance of the system comprising of users and transit services and the factors influencing them, have received limited attention in literature. In this paper a model is developed to analyse the system performance when the modes of fixed public transport and flexible public transport operate in competition. The model is implemented in the multi-agent simulation framework MATSim with dynamic assignment in which the users optimize their travel plan through iterative learning from the service experienced and altering their travel plan. The scenarios in which the flexible public transport offer private and shared services are considered. The system performance is analysed for varying fleet size of flexible public transport and ratio of cost of flexible to fixed public transport.
Find the paper HERE
Urban Demand Responsive Transport in the Mobility as a Service ecosystem: its role and potential market share
Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is entering the transportation market. MaaS aims at the full
integration of the existing transportation services and it offers tailored mobility packages to
the user. In MaaS ecosystems, on-demand services play an important role as complement to
public transport due to their flexibility. However, to date, most attention has been placed on
individual on-demand services. This study focuses on Demand Responsive Transport (DRT):
collective on-demand services. Using an on-line survey, we analysed the characteristics of
the respondents who chose different modes of transport among their selected modes.
Results find a distinctive pattern in the willingness of users to use different modes, with
different levels in what could be considered as a multimodality ladder. The different rungs of
it would be: 1st car (if available), 2nd public transport, 3rd DRT and 4th taxi-like services.
This way, a person standing on the third rung would include car, public transport and DRT in
their consideration set, but not taxi. This finding suggests that, if implemented in the right
way, DRT services can attract a larger number of users than taxi-like services, especially in a
MaaS ecosystem where initial barriers to try this service can be lessened.
Find the paper presented by Maria Alonso Gonzalez at the Thredbo conference in Stockholm HERE