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Rail transportation plays a crucial role in facilitating efficient and sustainable urban development, particularly in densely populated areas. This study aims to evaluate customer satisfaction with the public transport system in Malaysia, with a focus on rail transportation. The research examines various factors that influence customer satisfaction, including service quality, punctuality, convenience, safety, and cleanliness. The study utilizes a mixed-methods approach, combining secondary data analysis and primary data collection. Secondary data analysis involves a comprehensive review of existing literature, including academic papers, government reports, and industry publications. Primary data is collected through a structured questionnaire administered to a sample of rail transport users in the Klang Valley region. The findings highlight the importance of service quality in shaping customer satisfaction. Factors such as reliable and punctual train arrivals, convenient and comfortable facilities, and a clean and safe environment emerge as key determinants of customer satisfaction. The study also identifies areas for improvement, including enhancing the efficiency of ticketing systems, increasing seating capacity during peak hours, and addressing cleanliness issues at stations and on trains. The research findings have implications for policymakers, transport authorities, and rail operators. By understanding the factors that influence customer satisfaction, stakeholders can design strategies to enhance the quality of rail transportation services. Improving customer satisfaction levels can lead to increased ridership, reduced road congestion, and a more sustainable transport system. The findings can also inform future infrastructure development plans and guide decision-making processes in the public transport sector. Overall, this study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on customer satisfaction in rail transportation and provides valuable insights for improving the quality and effectiveness of Malaysia's public transport system, specifically in the context of rail transportation.

Rail transportation plays a crucial role in facilitating efficient and sustainable urban development, particularly in densely populated areas. This study aims to evaluate customer satisfaction with the public transport system in Malaysia, with a focus on rail transportation. The research examines various factors that influence customer satisfaction, including service quality, punctuality, convenience, safety, and cleanliness. The study utilizes a mixedmethods approach, combining secondary data analysis and primary data collection. Secondary data analysis involves a comprehensive review of existing literature, including academic papers, government reports, and industry publications. Primary data is collected through a structured questionnaire administered to a sample of rail transport users in the Klang Valley region. The findings highlight the importance of service quality in shaping customer satisfaction. Factors such as reliable and punctual train arrivals, convenient and comfortable facilities, and a clean and safe environment emerge as key determinants of customer satisfaction. The study also identifies areas for improvement, including enhancing the efficiency of ticketing systems, increasing seating capacity during peak hours, and addressing cleanliness issues at stations and on trains. The research findings have implications for policymakers, transport authorities, and rail operators. By understanding the factors that influence customer satisfaction, stakeholders can design strategies to enhance the quality of rail transportation services. Improving customer satisfaction levels can lead to increased ridership, reduced road congestion, and a more sustainable transport system. The findings can also inform future infrastructure development plans and guide decision-making processes in the public transport sector. Overall, this study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on customer satisfaction in rail transportation and provides valuable insights for improving the quality and effectiveness of Malaysia's public transport system, specifically in the context of rail transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bus rapid transit (BRT) systems have emerged as efficient, convenient, and cost-effective solutions to meet customer transport needs. Since their advent in developing countries, a plethora of research has examined the service quality attributes of such systems that contribute to customers' overall satisfaction. Yet, there have been some methodological gaps that have limited understanding of what maximizes customer satisfaction with the service quality of the BRT system. This current study intends to fill such gaps and examines drivers of explicit and derived customer satisfaction with BRT systems in the emerging economy of Pakistan. In-depth interviews were first conducted to identify key service quality dimensions for BRT customers from four major Pakistani cities. A structured survey was then used to collect data from a total of 481 respondents (useable responses) using the Qualtrics platform. Data were analyzed via gap analysis, importance-performance grid, and regression analyses in SPSS to identify service quality elements that derive BRT customer satisfaction. These three data analysis techniques produced varying findings regarding service quality dimensions needing improvement to increase satisfaction. This study provides critical insights to improve the customers' BRT experience and some theoretical contributions for future researchers. • Four BRT systems are analyzed in a developing economy. • Importance Performance analysis is conducted. • Explicit and derived satisfaction approaches yield different results. • Ease of access, coverage, and timely information are attributed to focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organization and management of Public Passenger Transport (PPT) system is a complex process, which significantly impacts the functioning of the system. Globally, there is no unique solution for organization model of PPT, but the organization models are adjusted to the characteristics of each individual area. Organization model of PPT, inherited from the self-management system of the former Socialist Federal Republic (SFR) Yugoslavia, became unsustainable in the Municipality of Inđija (Serbia) and did not fulfil transport needs and demands of passengers regarding the amount of transport and its quality in optimal manner. Old organization model has been replaced by a new modern model, based on positive experiences from developed European cities. Article presents the impact of new organization model of PPT on the work of the system. Research has been conducted in order to determine the state of both old and new system’s organization model by counting and interviewing passengers during years 2008 and 2017. In accordance with the changes made in the system, comparative analysis “before and after changes” has been done along with establishing of the effects of changes on functioning of the system and service quality. Results show significantly improved service quality, while transport demands increase by 38.3%.

In most urban cities, the correct design of the bus routes network is a critical task to design a successful transportation system. Thus, network designers rely on solving the Urban Transit Routing Problem (UTRP) to find a set of bus routes that minimises users travelling time and system operator costs. Most UTRP instances lack real-life demand data information, are very small w.r.t. typical scenarios or standards, or are randomly generated. Moreover, state-of-the-art dimensional reduction techniques use inherent features of urban transportation systems; therefore, they cannot significantly reduce the order of magnitude in complex cases. This article proposes a framework for generating UTRP instances that shrink the complexity of substantial real-life scenarios through well-known clustering algorithms and geographic database applications. The generated instances preserve the original demand behaviour and road structure by connecting central and periphery locations. We discuss and validate this proposal by applying it in a complex study case, the RED system from Santiago of Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organization and management of Public Passenger Transport (PPT) system is a complex process, which significantly impacts the functioning of the system. Globally, there is no unique solution for organization model of PPT, but the organization models are adjusted to the characteristics of each individual area. Organization model of PPT, inherited from the self-management system of the former Socialist Federal Republic (SFR) Yugoslavia, became unsustainable in the Municipality of Inđija (Serbia) and did not fulfil transport needs and demands of passengers regarding the amount of transport and its quality in optimal manner. Old organization model has been replaced by a new modern model, based on positive experiences from developed European cities. Article presents the impact of new organization model of PPT on the work of the system. Research has been conducted in order to determine the state of both old and new system's organization model by counting and interviewing passengers during years 2008 and 2017. In accordance with the changes made in the system, comparative analysis "before and after changes" has been done along with establishing of the effects of changes on functioning of the system and service quality. Results show significantly improved service quality, while transport demands increase by 38.3%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The transportation sector is considered one of the most important sectors affecting the planning and development of cities. It is the responsible sector for traffic and transport inter- and intra-cities through the mass transit systems, which reflect the civilization, urban, economic, and social levels of cities. The importance of this study lies in studying the most important mass transit systems, namely the metro system, as stated unanimously by transport experts and urban planners. It is characterized by speed, safety, and punctuality. It avoids bus drawbacks such as slowness and mixing with other types of traffic. This research aims to find a set of criteria that contribute to improving metro performance and increasing its efficiency. In this paper, some standards were collected from 29 countries with metro systems that are considered successful as they meet the needs of their communities. Conducting the principal component analysis (PCA) and multiple regression analysis (MRA) has produced three mathematical equations to explain the impact of these standards in improving the performance and efficiency of the metro system. The results showed that there is no one set of specific standards among the countries around the world that could be sufficient to rely on to monitor and evaluate metro system performance, which requires further studying and research in this area.

United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Number 11 aims to promote inclusiveness and sustainable urbanization, such that cities can become productive and accessible places for attracting talent, encouraging innovation, and creating economic growth. SDG Target 11.2 specifically mentions urban transport. Localizing SDG Target 11.2 involves city governments ensuring a public transport (PT) system that has at least two dimensions of accessibility: physical and economic. This translates to ensuring barrier-free physical access to the PT system, as well as affordable fares for using the PT system. This study presents a process for operationalizing the SDG Target 11.2 indicator for small cities in India. The study focuses on addressing physical access to quality public transport system. Presently, the commuters in these cities are dependent on intermediate PT (IPT) systems to meet their mobility needs.Small cities lack a detailed database for planning PT systems. Master plans are generally prepared by planning authorities to guide the future development of cities; however, the master plan documents lack discussion and vision for future mobility, as required by SDG Target 11.2. This study concludes that the current indicator for SDG Target 11.2 requires modification to ensure SDG-compliant PT systems in small cities. An integrated IPT and PT system is required to improve access to high-quality PT systems, in line with SDG Target 11.2.

Identification of the role of the waterbus system in the development of tourism in a large coastal city – a tourist center of international importance. Cartographic materials, qualitative and quantitative data on the waterbus system, spatial development and tourist traffic were used. Quantitative temporal and spatial analyses were conducted, including GIS analyses. Service of the tourist traffic is the dominant function of the waterbus in Gdańsk. This is determined by three categories of factors: (i) the seasonal nature of the system and a low level of integration with the public transport system; (ii) low potential demand for transport services due to the fact that most of the stops are far away from large residential or work centers; (iii) proximity of most of the city’s main tourist attractions to the stops. The obtained results are helpful in programming the development of public transport systems, especially in large tourist coastal cities. The conditions of spatial development are of key importance for shaping the dominant function of the waterbus.

In 2015, Fort-de-France, the main city of Martinique, a small French West Indies island, made the ambitious decision to introduce a new mode of public transportation, a reserved public transport lane, or ‘RPTL’. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model, we conducted a survey to identify the determinants of intention to use the new mode of transport by current public transport users on the island. These determinants seem to vary depending on the frequency of use of the current transport system. Hence, when people already used public transport every day (high frequency), their intention to use the RPTL is solely predicted by the perceived usefulness of the RPTL. For those who use it less often (moderate frequency), only the norm―i.e., what others do―and age were predictors of intention to use the RPTL. Finally, for rare public transport users (low frequency), their intention is predicted by perceived usefulness and social norms. These results show that all users have different reasons for using this new mode of transport. Identifying these determinants could be useful to local politicians, enabling them to make efficient information and promotion campaigns for the RPTL, and especially designed for those potential users who are not familiar with public transport.

Robustness studies on integrated urban public transport networks have attracted growing attention in recent years due to the significant influence on the overall performance of urban transport system. In this paper, topological properties and robustness of a bus–subway coupled network in Beijing, composed of both bus and subway networks as well as their interactions, are analyzed. Three new models depicting cascading failure processes on the coupled network are proposed based on an existing binary influence modeling approach. Simulation results show that the proposed models are more accurate than the existing method in reflecting actual passenger flow redistribution in the cascading failure process. Moreover, the traffic load influence between nodes also plays a vital role in the robustness of the network. The proposed models and derived results can be utilized to improve the robustness of integrated urban public transport systems in traffic planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Number 11 aims to promote inclusiveness and sustainable urbanization, such that cities can become productive and accessible places for attracting talent, encouraging innovation, and creating economic growth. SDG Target 11.2 specifically mentions urban transport. Localizing SDG Target 11.2 involves city governments ensuring a public transport (PT) system that has at least two dimensions of accessibility: physical and economic. This translates to ensuring barrier-free physical access to the PT system, as well as affordable fares for using the PT system. This study presents a process for operationalizing the SDG Target 11.2 indicator for small cities in India. The study focuses on addressing physical access to quality public transport system. Presently, the commuters in these cities are dependent on intermediate PT (IPT) systems to meet their mobility needs. Small cities lack a detailed database for planning PT systems. Master plans are generally prepared by planning authorities to guide the future development of cities; however, the master plan documents lack discussion and vision for future mobility, as required by SDG Target 11.2. This study concludes that the current indicator for SDG Target 11.2 requires modification to ensure SDG-compliant PT systems in small cities. An integrated IPT and PT system is required to improve access to high-quality PT systems, in line with SDG Target 11.2. • An integrated bus and intermediate public transport system can provide access to ~90% of the city population in small cities. • Improvement in Improvement in non-motorized transport (NMT) network and integrated public transport (PT) network, can increase 20–30% public transport demand by 2025, 30–50% increase by 2030 in small cities in India. • Improved intermediate PT (IPT) services in small cities can provide access to 20–30% of the population. • Sustainable Development Goal Target 11.2.1 should include IPT access and a shorter access distance of 300–400 m,. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identification of the role of the waterbus system in the development of tourism in a large coastal city -- a tourist center of international importance. Cartographic materials, qualitative and quantitative data on the waterbus system, spatial development and tourist traffic were used. Quantitative temporal and spatial analyses were conducted, including GIS analyses. Service of the tourist traffic is the dominant function of the waterbus in Gdańsk. This is determined by three categories of factors: (i) the seasonal nature of the system and a low level of integration with the public transport system; (ii) low potential demand for transport services due to the fact that most of the stops are far away from large residential or work centers; (iii) proximity of most of the city's main tourist attractions to the stops. The obtained results are helpful in programming the development of public transport systems, especially in large tourist coastal cities. The conditions of spatial development are of key importance for shaping the dominant function of the waterbus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demographic ageing represents an essential challenge for local authorities and public transport providers. Decision-makers should not ignore the speci c needs of this weak segment of the population and should implement appropriate policies. This paper develops a GIS-based method to analyse public transport accessibility of elderly people to support policies and planning strategies. To test the proposed method, we propose an application to the city of Naples in Italy. We selected this study case because it represents an example of high population density, complex urban structure and low level of quality of life, especially for the elderly. The application to the city of Naples showed that the urban accessibility changes dramatically for different age segments. Results also reveal patterns of public transport coverage that are signi cantly low particularly in suburban settings. The structure of this paper is organised into four sections: in the rst section, we introduce the main topic of mobility of elderly; in the second section, we describe and discuss the GIS-based method proposed; in the third section, we report on the application to the city of Naples; in the last section, we analyse the results and discuss future research developments.

Advancement of the public transport system is important to modern society for reliable performance. Intelligent public transport system can utilize the time very effectively to give better performance to the society. Fast advancement in equipment, programming, and correspondence innovations has encouraged the rise of Internetassociated devices that give perceptions and information gathering from modern reality. By interfacing, an internetenabled device with the public transport system leads to the intelligent public transport system. This paper proposed intelligent public transport with IoT enabled system to give an accurate prediction to the arrival time of the bus to the particular bus stops. Here, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used as a prediction algorithm and ANN is trained with different traffic parameters and environmental conditions. Parameters which are considered in the proposed system includes Distance(D), Waiting Time at Stops (WTS), Red signal Duration at Traffic Signal (RSD), Traffic Density (TD), Turning Density (TRD), Rush hours (RH), Weekends (WE), Weather conditions (WC), Number of passengers in the bus (NP), Public Holiday (PH), Road Type (RT). These parameters and the measured real-time arrival time of the bus in different stops for 10 days is used for training the ANN. This trained ANN is implemented on the server-side. In this paper, the performance of the proposed IOT-ANN-SPTS system is compared with the existing previous related works. From the performance analysis, it is shown that the proposed system produced less error (MAE=134.582, RMSE=197.738, MAPE=28.87) when compared to the other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, Fort-de-France, the main city of Martinique, a small French West Indies island, made the ambitious decision to introduce a new mode of public transportation, a reserved public transport lane, or 'RPTL'. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model, we conducted a survey to identify the determinants of intention to use the new mode of transport by current public transport users on the island. These determinants seem to vary depending on the frequency of use of the current transport system. Hence, when people already used public transport every day (high frequency), their intention to use the RPTL is solely predicted by the perceived usefulness of the RPTL. For those who use it less often (moderate frequency), only the norm--i.e., what others do--and age were predictors of intention to use the RPTL. Finally, for rare public transport users (low frequency), their intention is predicted by perceived usefulness and social norms. These results show that all users have different reasons for using this new mode of transport. Identifying these determinants could be useful to local politicians, enabling them to make efficient information and promotion campaigns for the RPTL, and especially designed for those potential users who are not familiar with public transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A method to assess the vulnerability of PTS comprising subsystem is proposed. • Critical areas of PTS are identified based on running timetable and position data. • Differences of vulnerability or critical area between subsystem and PTS are revealed. • A case of high-speed rail and air transport coupling system in China is researched. The public transport system (PTS) consists of different types of transport subsystems, such as high-speed rail (HSR), air transport (AT), conventional railway, expressway and waterway in a state, which exerts significant impacts on distribution of demographic and economic activities. And its interruption or failure may cause severe social and economic disruption. So the vulnerability analysis of the system attracts an increasing attention. However, most of previous researches mainly concentrate on the vulnerability modeling and analyzing of a single subsystem, neglecting the simultaneous interruption of components, and less considering the complementary effects of other subsystems from systematic perspective and the geographic interdependency among components. For trying to fill these gaps, this paper proposes a method to analyze the vulnerability of PTS composed of two or more transport subsystems and identity the critical area within the system based on the data of running timetable and position coordinates. Finally, taking HSR and AT coupling system in mainland China as a case study, we investigate the differences of vulnerability and critical areas between individual subsystem and overall system. Results reveal that the vulnerability variations and the critical areas distribution of the system are different from these of the subsystems. The research also finds that whether a component is critical depends not only on the system's feature, but also on the component's feature, whether an area is critical depends on economic development and population density of the area. These findings are beneficial to prioritize the plan, budget and maintenance of PTS, and prepare emergency response plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New and emerging technologies, such as connected sensors, smartphones and smart cards, offer new possibilities to collect rich real-time information about travelers. Moreover, smartphones also enable travelers to actively share information, for instance, about their intended travel plans. This type of information can be used to improve public transport disturbance management. In this paper, the potential gain of collecting different types of information about travelers is explored to support action decisions made by public transport actors, during unplanned disturbances. Based on interviews and workshops, the paper provides a mapping between different information types and possible action decisions that can be supported. Furthermore, based on a literature review focused on current and potential technical solutions, a guidance to which solutions support which type of action decisions, is also provided. Amongst others, the results show that automated fare collection, which is one of the most commonly implemented systems providing real-time information about the traveler, can support a large number of action decisions relevant in unplanned disturbance scenarios. The technical solution providing the most extensive information, and thereby providing the best support for the action decisions, involves smartphone apps delivering user-generated information. The drawback with this solution is that it might violate privacy, and that it typically relies on the travelers providing relevant information voluntarily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents some results devoted to providing network analysis functionalities for vulnerability assessment in public transportation networks with respect to disruptive events and/or targeted attacks to stations. The results have been obtained on two public transportation networks: the bus network in Florence, Italy, and the transportation network in the Attika region, Greece. The analysis implements a topological approach, based on graph theory, using a multi-graph to model public transportation networks and analyse vulnerabilities with respect to the removal of one or more of their components. Both directed attacks and cascading failures are considered. While the first type of disruptive events is related to a static analysis, where nodes are removed according to a rank related to some centrality measures, the second type is related to a dynamic analysis, where a failure cascade is simulated making unavailable the node with the highest betweenness value. Vulnerability measures are computed as loss of connectivity and efficiency, with respect to both the two different types of disruptive events considered. This study allows to evidence potential vulnerabilities of the urban networks, that must be considered to support the planning process into the creation of resilient structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure and properties of urban public transport networks are important for understanding the mobility of public transport systems. However, most studies have ignored the impact of shared mobility and lacked the support of large-scale empirical data when exploring the mobility of urban public transport networks. Using multi-mode travel data, this study constructs a three-layer multiplex network and assigns weights to reflect the transport capacity of different modes (bus, metro, and shared bike) based on ridership and travel distances. The case study was conducted on the public transport system of Shenzhen, China. The results show that the degree distribution and edge weight distribution of the multiplex network exhibit distinct scale-free characteristics. The effect of the multiplex network model on single-layer networks suggests that cooperation between networks significantly improves the capacity and efficiency of urban public transport systems. Regression analysis reveals the effects of the urban population and land use on the demand for public transport services. The results show an intrinsic association between the public transport system and urban land use, which will facilitate the prediction of public transport demand and serve the sustainable development of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managers of public transport systems have been facing for years the strategic challenge of maintaining high quality of transport services to improve the mobility of citizens, while reducing costs and ensuring safety and low environmental impact. A well-established way to evaluate the performance achieved by the system or by specific activities is to monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPI). However, existing management systems, which refer to flexible yet large and complex data models, provide a limited support to define and select relevant KPIs for the objectives at hand, and even the identification of whether and how the data model is capable to achieve a certain informative need is a critical and time-consuming task. This work is aimed to propose a framework to ease the development of a monitoring system in the public transport domain. The approach is based on the ontological representation of all the knowledge regarding indicators and their formulas, business objectives, dimension analysis and their relation with the Transmodel, the European reference data model for public transport information systems. On its top, a reasoning framework provides logic functionalities to interactively support designers in a set of common design tasks: the choice of the most suitable indicators for the performance monitoring needs at hand, the definition of new indicators and the identification of the minimal set of Transmodel modules needed to calculate them. A case study is included to discuss these applications, while an evaluation shows the feasibility of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the critical issues of the current urban planning, mobility and accessibility in the post-earthquake (2009) settlement configuration of L’Aquila urban area (Italy), the medieval centre of which has a unique architectural and artistic heritage. The purpose of the study is to analyse the L’Aquila urban planning experiences in order to trace the relationship between the mobility and the spatial structure of the city. The current scenario is considered both as the result of the historical evolution of the settlement and as a dynamic system in which a mix of natural forces, decisional choices and technical expertise have operated. The result of the research is a preliminary proposal for the implementation of the public transportation system that is obtained by integrating a re-designed existing railway line with a sustainable concepts of mobility based on a “dense grid” network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth of towns is a result of citizen’s social and physical division. Urban planners and scientists have increased the number of links between urban transport and urban development. Public transport has been in the focus of attention as a sustainable and environmentally sensitive transport that brings environmental benefit and possibility to serve mobility needs of citizens without private cars and reduces social division. The article identifies the main factors that affect the use of public transport in town: land use planning; local government policy; extent of economic resources; implementation of modern technologies; social tendencies. Analysis of the scientific literature has revealed four main models of towns of sustainable urban forms: neo-traditional development, urban restrictions, compact town and ecological town. Vilnius has the formed urban and mono-functional structure with a high imbalance between residential and work places which conditions a high mobility of inhabitants as well as high concentration of transport flows on limited-density street networks between the western residential areas and the central part of the City where the main workplaces are located. It presents the provisions of the Vilnius City Master Plan 2015 concerning the public transport improvement. The article also assesses developments in the public transport network in 2003–2009 resulting from changes in individual routes with regard to passenger time necessary for traveling. Modelling is carried out with the help of VISUM software. Citizens of Buivydiškės and Santariškės are mostly affected by the developments, while the situation in Pavilnys, Aukštieji Paneriai and Tarandė has changed only slightly.

The public transport system (PTS) is a complex organizational and technological system by its structure, operation and management. One of the basic and most important pre-conditions for effective and efficient PTS is an integrated management. Efficient management of complex PTS implies computerization of all processes in the system and data collection. In order to improve management of PTS in Belgrade local municipality has implemented new vehicle management and fare collection system. The new system is not only a reliable database and a tool for off-line planning and design of PTS, but it also enables real-time vehicle monitoring and management. The paper deals with this particular module of the system. Description of the system's architecture is presented with the main functional elements. Emphasis is placed on the description of the communication system and data structure necessary for the effective and efficient real-time monitoring and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present models and the corresponding decision-support tool, SARTRE, for evaluating the Public Transport Net- works (PTN), and more specifically a bus network. Firstly, we define the framework architecture of SARTRE. The PTN model is explained, and various evaluation and assessment methods are explained. These models and evaluation algorithms are specifically designed to address to the design and the supervision of PTN for small- and medium-size towns. This approach has been success- fully implemented in a decision-support tool, which have been used by the public transport authority of the region of Belfort in France to supervise its new PTN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set in modern Shanghai's concessions, this paper reviews and identifies the evolution of public transport in Shanghai's concessions from such perspectives as the distribution of public transport lines, the growth of passenger volume, and traffic management. Then, by using quantitative analysis and superposing related statistical data with historical maps, it analyzes the relationship between the density of the public transport network and the land price zoning. The paper concludes that public transport has great influences on the modernization of urban space and public life in modern Shanghai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth of towns is a result of citizen's social and physical division. Urban planners and scientists have in- creased the number of links between urban transport and urban development. Public transport has been in the focus of attention as a sustainable and environmentally sensitive transport that brings environmental benefit and possibility to serve mobility needs of citizens without private cars and reduces social division. The article identifies the main factors that affect the use of public transport in town: land use planning; local government policy; extent of economic resources; implementation of modern technologies; social tendencies. Analysis of the scientific literature has revealed four main models of towns of sustainable urban forms: neo-traditional development, urban restrictions, compact town and ecological town. Vilnius has the formed urban and mono-functional structure with a high imbalance between residential and work places which conditions a high mobility of inhabitants as well as high concentration of transport lows on limited-density street networks between the western residential areas and the central part of the City where the main workplaces are located. It presents the provisions of the Vilnius City Master Plan 2015 concerning the public transport improvement. The article also assesses developments in the public transport network in 2003-2009 resulting from changes in individual routes with regard to passenger time necessary for traveling. Modelling is carried out with the help of VISUM software. Citizens of Buivydiškės and Santariškės are mostly affected by the developments, while the situation in Pavilnys, Aukštieji Paneriai and Tarandė has changed only slightly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A hybrid predictive control formulation based on evolutionary multi-objective optimization to optimize real-time operations of public transport systems is presented. The state space model includes bus position, expected load and arrival time at stops. The system is based on discrete events, and the possible operator control actions are: holding vehicles at stations and skipping some stations. The controller (operator) pursues the minimization of a dynamic objective function to generate better operational decisions under uncertain demand at bus stops. In this work, a multi-objective approach is conducted to include different goals in the optimization process that could be opposite. In this case, the optimization was defined in terms of two objectives: waiting time minimization on one side, and impact of the strategies on the other. A genetic algorithm method is proposed to solve the multi-objective dynamic problem. From the conducted experiments considering a single bus line corridor, we found that the two objectives are opposite but with a certain degree of overlapping, in the sense that in all cases both objectives significantly improve the level of service with respect to the open-loop scenario by regularizing the headways. On average, the observed trade-off validates the proposed multi-objective methodology for the studied system, allowing dynamically finding the pseudo-optimal Pareto front and making real-time decisions based on different optimization criteria reflected in the proposed objective function compounds. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Power & Electrical Engineering is the property of RTU Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: Moving walkways have been used for people transport for more than a century. One of the latest innovations in this field is the Accelerating Moving Walkway (AMW), which provides higher transport speed. However, the application of moving walkways is still limited to short-distance travel up to 300m. This paper summarizes and analyses the findings of a literature review on (accelerating) moving walkways, which aims to compare the characteristics of AMWs with other public transport systems, namely buses, light rails, Automated People Movers (APMs), and Personal Rapid Transits (PRTs). Based on the comparative evaluation, we conclude that AMWs can be competitive to the other transport modes. Hence, we propose the potential application of AMWs for the transport of people, i.e. pedestrians, over longer distances. Subsequently, issues related to the concept of long-distance AMWs are briefly introduced as topics for further research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Power & Electrical Engineering is the property of RTU Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Paratransit refers to urban transport services “somewhere between private passenger transport and conventional public transport in terms of cost and quality of service” [Rimmer (1980), Paratransit: A commentary. Environ. Plan. A 12, 937–944]. Since the 1980s, a new form of paratransit—residents’ coach, which provides exclusive transport services to residents living in private housing estates—has emerged in Hong Kong. What was the background underlying the emergence and subsequent growth of residents’ coach services? Also, what was the role of residents’ coach in the public transport system of Hong Kong? With the completion of more railway extensions, should residents’ coach services be replaced? If so, what are the potential impacts on people’s life? This paper addresses the above research questions through a large-scale questionnaire survey that examined not only people’s modal choice but also their residential choice, socio-economic background and attitudes. The findings suggest that transport policy makers should pay more attention to examine new forms of paratransit and the ways of integrating them into the overall public transport system, both spatially and temporally. It is only through the development of an efficient and multi-modal transport system can the maximum potential of paratransit in filling the transport gap between conventional mass transit and private cars be realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A heuristic approach, ZEST for ESTimator, is developed to analyze bus driver scheduling problems and produce an estimate of the number of drivers required for a bus schedule. Based on the observation that the maximum number of drivers is needed in the morning and afternoon peaks, ZEST divides the driver scheduling problem into morning and afternoon sub- problems, solves each subproblem separately, and, finally, combines the solutions. The key techniques in ZEST derive from manual scheduling operations that examine the critical decision points in a bus schedule that are vital for a good driver schedule and use these decision points to develop chains of meal breaks that dovetail one driver's meal break with another driver's. ZEST can be used as a standalone estimator of driver duties or as a component of other driver scheduling approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]