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Mass rapid transit requires a high demand to function economically. It is necessary to provide complementary services, such as buses and vans, to increase the required demand. This results in the possibility of providing high performance transit to a wider area. One of the suggested methods is to establish an integrated system of a feeder network. Using such systems provide not only sufficient demand for the main networks but also the possibility of an integrated public transportation system that extends to the entire city. In this paper, we have proposed a method for designing feeder networks that gives multimodal services at each stop simultaneously by assigning the demand to different modes. The demand assignment is based on optimum use of fleet rather than desirability functions. The objective is to minimize the costs of the users, operators, and society. Furthermore, as multimodal network designing is a complex problem, a metaheuristic approach, ant colony optimization, is used. For illustrating and comparing the results, a real example in Mashhad, Iran, is run through 16 different scenarios. The scenarios were designed with different unit costs, and the results have been compared with the latest study. In all of the scenarios, the network costs are lower than those in other methods.

An exploration of the rent of office buildings in metropolises worldwide indicates that in response to the level of overall economic development, tenants often need to consider numerous factors when selecting the location of their offices, whereas landlords attempt to increase the rent of their buildings by using high-grade building materials to renovate the buildings and offering new facilities and property management services to meet the various needs of tenants. This study adopted the Delphic hierarchy process and analytic hierarchy process to explore office building rent in Taipei City by distributing a questionnaire to experts in the real estate field who possess practical experience in executing real estate projects. Specifically, the study investigated how office building rent is affected by factors such as geographical location and public facilities, thereby generating a reference for identifying related key factors. Analyzing the data collected from the questionnaire and the weighted indictor scores revealed that location in the main business district is the most crucial factor, followed by proximity to a Taipei Mass Rapid Transit station and the office building being a renowned landmark. By contrast, adequate property management is not a primary factor considered by the experts.

To evaluate the cardiovascular impact of traffic-related pollutant exposure on healthy young adults, the research team has collected the primary data of in-cabin exposure to air pollutants and heart rate variability (HRV). Twenty young healthy college students were recruited in Taipei metropolitan area. In addition to electrocardiogram, personal exposure to air pollutants, i.e., particulate matter (PM) and carbon monoxide (CO), and weather conditions, including temperature and relative humidity (RH), on campus, bus, and mass rapid transit were monitored continuously. The following HRV parameters were evaluated using generalized additive mixed model to adjust for personal and meteorological variables: heart rate (HR), the square root of the mean of the sum of the squares of differences between adjacent normal-to-normal (NN) intervals (r-MSSD), the standard deviation of all NN intervals (SDNN), the percentage of successive NN interval differences greater than 50 ms (pNN50), low-frequency power (LF), high-frequency power (HF), total power (TP), and LF/HF. They were assessed to find out the association between in-cabin exposure and HRV parameters. Compared with the HRV parameters measured on campus, the percent changes in r-MSSD, SDNN, pNN50+1, LF, HF, and TP decreased when the participants were in public transits. After adjusting for all locations, 5 min moving averages of PM2.5&ndash, 10 and PM1 were significantly associated with the increase in the percent changes in HR and SDNN. Additionally, 5 min moving averages of PM2.5&ndash, 10 exposure were significantly associated with the decrease in the percent change in HF, while it was significantly associated with the increase of the percent change in LF/HF. The reduction of the percent change in HR was also found to be significantly associated with 5 min CO moving averages. To conclude, current analyses have shown that size-fractionated PMs and CO exposure in public transits might lead to significant changes of HRV parameters for healthy young adults.

Jakarta is increasingly improving its public transportation services. At present, a breakthrough in the development of transportation has been made, especially related to the protocol road. These include expanding Transjakarta routes, Mass Rapid Transit, and Light Rail Transit. The addition of the number of modes of transportation has an impact on the addition of the number of stations or stops. However, it does not match by the availability of the government in procuring land for connecting transportation modes into deeper areas. The formal and informal transportation providers as an introduction to integrated transportation users still use the highway corridor as their place to raise, lower, and wait for passengers. Not yet found a place to raise, lower, and wait for those around the top of the officially integrated mode of transportation from the government or service providers. Therefore, this study was conducted to see how the division of land used by providers of the integrated transportation mode connector. This research method is to observe the spread of land use providers of formal and informal transportation services.

As more and more mass rapid transit (MRT) systems are constructed in urban areas with unfavourable ground conditions, failures have frequently occurred for various reasons, and risk management becomes a key issue. A knowledge base has been established for compiling the case histories associated with mass rapid transit constructions in the Asia-Pacific region in an attempt to develop means for engineers to identify, assess and prioritise potential risks. Failures are classified based on their consequence; the disastrous events which occurred in the Asia-Pacific region in the 10-year period between 2000 and 2009 are discussed in this paper.

This study proposed an indicator system for measuring and monitoring transport sustainability at the county (or city) level. Twenty-one indicators were grouped into economy, environment, society, and energy aspects. A committee comprised of government officials from Taipei City and New Taipei City proposed transport solutions to improve the transport sustainability of the Taipei metropolitan area. Ten key indicators were selected to measure the sustainable transport strategies. This study applied Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to construct the cause–effect relationships between these key indicators and to evaluate sustainable transport strategies. The evaluation results showed that the strategy of expanding mass rapid transit (MRT) lines was predicted to produce the most significant improvements; the strategy of integrating bus exclusive lanes would provide the least improvement; and the strategies of promoting cleaner vehicles and integrating Fu-Kang bus resources would perform similarly to each other in improving transport sustainability.

The Bangkok metropolitan area, located on a thick river soft clay deposit, has recently started a construction project on a mass rapid transit underground railway (MRT). This paper presents a finite element study on the Bangkok MRT underground construction project. The excavation of Sukhumvit Station was selected as the case study for the FEM numerical modelling in this paper. The numerical study focuses on the initial input on the ground conditions and the constitutive soil models. The geotechnical parameters were selected based on the soil investigation reports carried out for the purpose of the construction. The parameters selected for the constitutive models used in the FEM analysis were calibrated against the laboratory testing results. Finally, all the FEM simulations were compared with the data from field investigations.

This paper seeks to build new park and ride facilities (including the location and size) as well as expand the old ones based on the super road network composed of the road network and mass rapid transit (MRT) network. Park and ride facility location model of the outskirts of the city is established grounded infusing path-based user equilibrium assignment model and multi-assignment method, which is based on minimal investments. The calculation results of the model show that park and ride facilities on the outskirts of the city can greatly reduce the road traffic in central area.

Rail-based ‘Mass Rapid Transit System’ has been widely accepted as a solution for most of the traffic and environmental pollution related problems which major cities throughout the world are facing now. Metro rail construction activities are being undertaken in a big way in India, existing metro rail network of the city of Kolkata and Delhi are being expanded, while it is under various stages of construction in cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad. In the present article, important environmental and other critical issues have been discussed in the Indian context which are equally relevant in other developing counties.

Construction of the extension project of the Bangkok MRT Blue Line underground railway was recently started in 2011. The construction of approximately 5 km long underground tunnel and 4 deep excavations of underground station are considered to be the most important geotechnical works. The pressuremeter was selected as a high-quality in situ testing of the soil to evaluate design parameters for the project. In addition, other field and laboratory tests such as vane shear and CK0U triaxial tests were included in the investigation programme. This paper aims to present the ground conditions encountered along the MRT Blue Line extension project as well as the site investigation and interpretation techniques with particular focus on the pressuremeter tests. The results are also compared with the pressuremeter investigation from the previous Bangkok MRT project.

A series of field-measured data are used to characterize the ground vibration induced by the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (TMRT) system on bridges. The measurements for analysis consist of various geological conditions with wide ranges of ground shear wave velocities. Both ground vibration beside bridge column and vibration propagation induced by TMRT are evaluated and then compared with those induced by the Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) system. Based on the analyses, the overall vibration level beside a bridge column is between 68 and 72 dB (ref. 1 micro-inch/sec). The overall vibration attenuation coefficients range from 2.1 × 10-3/m to 5.3 × 10-3/m, and the attenuation coefficient decreases with increasing ground shear wave velocity. The overall vibration influence distance increases with increasing ground shear wave velocity and is between 117 and 243 m. Meanwhile, the low and middle frequencies have the farthest influence distances for all soil types. Compared with the THSR, the vibration level and influence distance of the TMRT are lower. The attenuation coefficient of the TMRT on bridges is slightly higher than that of the THSR on both embankments and bridges. Further detailed discussions are also provided in the paper.

This study facilitates the scalability of as-built data from an earlier street level to underground transportation sites from the life-cycle perspective of urban information maintenance. As-built 3D scans of a 6 km street were made at different time periods, and of 3 underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations under construction in Taipei. A scanned point cloud was used to create a Building Information Modeling (BIM) Level of Development (LOD) 500 as-built point cloud model, with which topographic utility data were integrated and the model quality was investigated. The complex underground models of the transportation stations are proofed to be in correct relative locations to the street entrances on ground level. In the future the 3D relationship around the station will facilitate new designs or excavations in the neighborhood urban environment.

The case: In December 2011, one of Singapore’s main mass transit rail lines came to a standstill for several hours on two separate days. While occasional public transport breakdowns are unavoidable, the rail operator came under intense criticism for its poor handling of the incidents, including its failure in crisis communication.Its value: This case can be used to illustrate a number of perspectives and concepts from the literature on crisis and organisational communication. Of particular contemporary interest is what the case shows about how communication technologies, including social media, should and should not be used by organisations.

When the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) train services were disrupted on 15 December 2011, poor communication, lack of timely support and the subsequent disclosure of ill-preparedness for the crisis caused anger and resentment among commuters, especially since there had been an increase in taxi fares prior to the incident, causing greater dependence on train services. Even before an official press statement was released by the organisation, social networking and blog sites were abuzz with stories of SMRT’s handling of the crisis. Despite SMRT’s track record of financial success and its strong support from the Land and Transport Authority (LTA), good media reporting is not beholden to corporations or governments, capturing breaking stories as they happen. These stories reflect the negative reactions of the people, the SMRT’s unsatisfactory management responses and the voices of dissent from a disgruntled public. This paper analyses several media reports in the mainstream English newspapers as well as ...

The majority of fire safety studies on train stations have been on underground stations, because underground developments are considered to have a higher level of risk from the effects of a fire within a confined space. As a result, fire safety requirements for underground stations are relatively more rigorous compared to aboveground stations, and this is consistent with general fire safety provisions required by fire codes for underground facilities. A literature review of both local and international fire safety provisions for stations has shown that fire safety provisions for aboveground stations are generally lacking. This chapter presents a three-stage performance-based approach to evaluate fire safety on aboveground stations utilizing Singapore’s North-South and East-West lines as a case study. The assessment demonstrated that a significant portion of the platform of aboveground stations can continue to remain tenable from conditions resulting from a trainway fire, even with the consideration of wind in the adverse direction. The study also identified design consideration for fire safety provisions of aboveground stations that current local codes do not explicitly address.

Developments of urban areas must consider mass transportation of people generated by economic activities and their impact on public safety. Fire remains a great challenge for the city’s planner as its occurrence in crowded and busy areas could result in a fire disaster. A fire disaster in a mass public transportation system could cause serious impact due to the number of people involved. During design stage of new mass rapid transit lines, the walking characteristics of the local passengers should be greatly considered. This paper critically analysed passenger movement at the three busiest commuter line stations in Jakarta. The survey was carried out during the peak hours both in the morning and in the evening. It is observed that the walking speed of the passenger was affected by density at various locations measured on the platform and concourse levels as well as at the ticket gates. The corresponding value of the specific flow was also derived to frame the average value that could be considered during the design stage of a new line. In general, the study shows that both the average walking speed and the specific flow of the local passengers are slightly lower than the average value given in the international standards such as NFPA 130 (USA) and MLIT (Technical Standard Requirement for Japan Railway).

The Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (KVMRT) Sungai Buloh - Kajang Line project is the first Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project in Malaysia. The KVMRT Project when completed will cover a distance of 51km and comprises of 31 passenger stations. This paper covers the challenges in design and construction of deep excavation works for three underground stations, namely Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) station, Cochrane Station and Maluri Station, as well as one portal (South Portal) all located in Kuala Lumpur limestone formation. The Kuala Lumpur Limestone formation exhibits notorious karstic features with irregular bedrock profiles, variable weathering condition, cavities and slime zones. This paper presents the design principles of temporary earth retaining system together with vertical rock excavation to the final depth of the station in karstic limestone formation. The unique experience (design and construction) gained from this project will be a useful reference for similar excavation works, especially in karstic limestone formation

The feeder bus is needed to support the dedicated infrastructures (i.e. monorail and tram) in order to pick-up passengers from the bus stops in all location to the monorail/tram stations and vice versa. Planning of feeder bus routing is important to be conducted in order to determine the best flow of routes in each of monorail/tram stations. This paper proposes a Genetic Algorithm based approach to develop feeder bus routing model in order to determine the best flow of routes and minimum amount of feeder bus. Surotram project in Surabaya Mass Rapid Transit (SMART) project is selected as the case study in this paper. The results indicated that the base solutions of 12 feeder bus routes were wounded with 45 feeder-bus to serve 51 bus stops in all locations.

The Mass Rapid Transit projects undergo rapid growth within city, inching nearer to commercial buildings and extending further to heavily populated residential areas. To ensure better performance of modern Mass Rapid Transit system, the design uses higher technology electronics systems, hence escalating the probability of generating high amount of radiated emission to its nearby environment as well. EMC measurements on the railway systems were conducted to assist the quantifying of radiated emission, and to check these radiated emission levels are all kept within acceptable levels. The paper highlights LTA's adopted approach on controlling radiated emission, and presents the measured radiated emission results from completed project such as North-East-Line (NEL) and Circle Line (CCL) projects at locations consisting of substations, stations, platforms, railway tracks and etc. A wide frequency range of radiated emission measurement results, relating to Electric and Magnetic Field, were analyzed to verify compliance with the well recognized International Railway EMC standards.

Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) for Rapid Transit System (RTS) applications has recently been adopted by several established railway system suppliers. However, the application of MBSE at the System-of-Systems (SoS) level remains less prevalent in the transportation industry. The adoption of MBSE using Systems Modelling Language (SysML) in this area would offers better management of SoS complexity, enhanced communications among stakeholders and greater support for RTS operators leveraging on models across the systems’ lifecycle.

We estimate the network externality of a public transit system by examining the effects of its expansion on the housing market. Our results show that a major expansion of Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system increased the price of apartments within 0.5 km of a pre-expansion station by 1.6% to 2.1% relative to apartments that were further away from a station. Evaluated at the mean housing price, the expansion increased the value of pre-connected apartments by at least S$386 million, which is equivalent to about 8% of the estimated S$5 billion cost of the expansion.

In this research, we aim to design real-time fuzzy bus holding system (FBHS) for the mass rapid transit (MRT) transfer system with real-time information for a terminal station with in a metropolitan area. We employ fuzzy logic to develop a model for the MRT-bus system to achieve the following goals pertaining to bus holding strategies used: to reduce the bus waiting time, to reduce the passenger waiting time, and to reduce passenger traveling time. In order to enhance the performance of the MRT-bus transfer system, we develop several fuzzy rules in the transfer models that are different functions of the travel time taken by buses during different time periods, such as rush hours and off-peak hours. Real-time traffic information acquired by the intelligent transportation systems through global positioning systems is used as input data for the FBHS. A performance index function is derived and served as the performance measure to compare our system with real data. The experimental results show that the FBHS significantly reduces the overall passenger waiting time and improves the performance of the MRT-bus transfer system.

Network mobility (NEMO) enables a group of nodes to connect to the back-end infrastructure during the movement. Because a vehicle must provide passengers good enough transmission quality, various access techniques, for example, 3 G/3.5 G, Wi-Fi or dedicated short range communication, can be simultaneously equipped to aggregate bandwidth and tolerate link failure. This paper extends the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based NEMO framework to support multihoming. First, IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover (MIH) is integrated to manage multiple egress interfaces in an on-board unit (OBU). Second, a dynamic synchronization mechanism using the SIP SUBSCRIBE and NOTIFY methods is proposed to manage multiple OBUs in a vehicle. Furthermore, the framework is applied to public transportation systems, for example, bus, train, or mass rapid transit. Passengers may need to transit several times during their journeys. The transit behavior must induce a flood of signaling messages for location update. In this paper, the SIP REFER method is exploited to reduce signaling messages while a group of passengers have scheduled their transit in advance. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

As of 2010, the Taipei mass rapid transit (MRT) comprised 8 rapid transit lines stretching 90.5 km and linking 82 stations. Currently, over 1.4 million commuters a day travel on the Taipei MRT system. However, information related to the characteristics of indoor air quality at ground-level and in underground stations in the Taipei MRT system is limited. This study used portable monitors to measure the PM10, PM2.5, particle number (PN), CO, and CO2 levels at an underground (UG) and two ground-level (AG1 and AG2) MRT stations on the same rapid transit line. All measurements were taken between August 20 and November 12, 2010. The mean PM10 and PM2.5 levels in underground environments (underground ticket hall and platform of the UG and underground platform of the AG1) are approximately 51–65 μg m−3 and 25–40 μg m−3, respectively. Additionally, the mean PM10 and PM2.5 levels in ground-level indoor environments (ground-level ticket halls of the AG1 and AG2) are approximately 44–48 μg m−3 and 26–29 μg m−3, respectively. Measurement results reveal that PM levels in underground environments are greater than those in ground-level indoor environments. PM levels in ground-level indoor environments are strongly associated with outdoor ambient PM levels, while PM levels in underground environments are less influenced by outdoor ambient conditions. The presence of coarse PM in the underground environments may have been generated internally through the mechanical friction processes or re-suspended by the movement of commuters, and fine PM is likely transferred from its source outside the station. The mean PM2.5-to-PM10 ratios in underground environments are 0.45–0.79, and at ground-level indoor environments are approximately 0.58. Based on differences in the environment conditions among these selected locations, it is reasonable to assume that PM2.5-to-PM10 ratios in underground and ground-level MRT stations will not be consistent, even those on the same metro line. Furthermore, low PN and CO levels are observed in underground environments. Mean PN and CO levels in underground environments are 9.5 × 103–1.7 × 104 particles cm−3 and 0.30–0.48 ppm, respectively, and significantly lower than those in outdoor environments by approximately 0.3–0.6 times. However, the CO2 levels in underground environments are 574–1051 ppm and significantly higher than those in outdoor environments, by approximately 1.3–2.4 times. The CO2 in underground environments is likely elevated by the exhalation of commuters.

In this article, two models for estimating the energy saving potential on a mass rapid transit system are described. The first model is very useful for analysing the energy and the second one aims at estimating consumptions of a mass rapid transit system in a period of time. The latter was applied first to a generic line with six stations and then to line A of Rome metro network. Results of both applications show that headways of 120–150 s are ideal for energy saving as they allow transfers between braking and accelerating trains.

This paper presents a method to optimize the train-speed trajectory and control between successive stations for mass rapid transit systems with the cable signaling system. The MAX–MIN ant system is utilized to search for the optimal speed codes of each section while taking track gradient, average speed, restriction of train speed, acceleration and jerk into consideration. The train acceleration is further regulated by a fuzzy-PID gain scheduler to meet the speed commands determined. Satisfactory simulation results show applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach as a tool for designing an energy-saving mass rapid transit system.

This paper considers the problem of revising train departure time to reduce electric power consumption of mass rapid transit (MRT) railways. The motion of a train running between stations is divided into three phases: traction, coasting, and deceleration phases. The traction phase requires high electric power to operate MRT railways. In the coasting phase, the train moves stably by consuming little or no power. The deceleration phase is a braking mode and produces some electric power called regenerated brake power owing to inertia force for the train generated In the traction and coasting phases. The regenerative energy can be used by other accelerating trains within a specific range from the train and thereby the power consumptions of train can be reduced. We developed a mixed integer programming model to solve the problem. To validate the suggested model, a computational experiment was conducted using real data from Korea Metropolitan Subway.

During special events, shuttle services provided by a feeder bus system can be very useful for providing passengers access to the mass rapid transit system, especially passengers in suburban areas where regular transit service is not usually available. During Expo 2010 Shanghai in China, such shuttle services connected the major terminals and the expected locations of passenger generation. Because of constrained vehicle resources and the staggered characteristics of peak hours, the free time spans of regular vehicles were used to complete the fixed feeder timetables. An integer-linear programming model was developed to obtain the optimal schedules of the feeder vehicles, and an associated coordination mechanism was proposed to adjust the model-developed schedules to obtain feasible solutions. This model was applied to the feeder system in Jiading district during Expo 2010 Shanghai. The results showed that the temporary feeder system could serve Expo passengers with a relatively high level of service without causing evident degradation in the regular bus service.

In this study, a control volume model is applied to simulate the process of evacuation in mass rapid transit (MRT) station using different scenarios. The control volume model assumes that each individual is an independent particle. When the evacuation occupant flow is larger than the capacity of the exit so that a virtual closed surface called the control surface that can be formed by connecting the waiting occupants at the exit. The change of the control volume is dependent on the transient number of the waiting occupants only. Based on the homogeneous flow with neglecting the behavior of the individual, the dynamic change of the evacuation occupant at the exit of the platform and the concourse can be formulated and analyzed. In addition, the number and capacity of the exits used in the total evacuation time analysis were measured with the aid of video recording and on-site observations. Using the control volume model, the dynamic characteristics of the evacuation process at each time-step for each of the exits are calculated and discussed. Comparisons are also made with the results found from other studies and NFPA 130.

Dynamic developments in the new construction and expansion of railway infrastructure have posed new challenges in the development and application of products, system components and services. Over the past 10–15 years, ballastless track systems have developed as standard technology, now applied for railway track on high-speed and heavy-haul lines. Successful international applications in the high-speed field, ballastless track has also become exceptionally well established in the form of modified system variants in mass rapid transit for urban and suburban traffic. This has replaced less effective solutions for such applications. In all fields of application, the railway infrastructure industry has over the past decades developed, tested and applied a broad spectrum of products and system variants to fulfil requirements placed on line sections and track structural design. This paper elaborates on the technological and economic advantages of ballastless track technology, and describes experience gained in i...

Of all cities in Taiwan, Taipei is fully internationalized and best‐equipped with a completed metro public transit system. Taipei MRT Company is trying to increase the number of inbound tourists by providing a better travel experience and design different marketing strategies to increase better MRT tourism attraction. The study purposes are to investigate inbound tourists' considerations for choosing public means of transportation during their travel in Taipei City, conduct the tourism attraction analysis of Taipei MRT system from the perspectives of inbound tourists, and identify how inbound tourists' traveling behavior influence their perceptions of Taipei MRT tourism attractions. The study sampled 312 inbound tourists in August and September of 2006 by using a closed‐ended questionnaire. Factor analysis revealed five factors that can be attractive to inbound tourists: holistic, service, information, tourism image, and location attraction. The study result also indicated that inbound tourists with diffe...

Tunnelling under existing tunnels in Bangkok has been undertaken in recent years. Unfortunately, monitoring in the vacant tunnel is inapplicable as most tunnels are constructed for the Metropolitan Water Network. Hence, close investigation of any deformation has not been carried out and the deformation of existing tunnels in Bangkok geology is unknown. Only ground deformation directly around water supply tunnel was monitored in previous projects. However, the city is developing, so the underground space will become smaller. Therefore, tunnel construction may not be able to avoid such close interaction with the existing underground structure in the near future. This article presents a study of the deformation of the mass rapid transit (MRT) subway tunnel during the construction of new underneath diversion tunnels. Lining deformation of the existing MRT subway tunnel is discussed in connection with the performance of TBM operation, including face pressure, advance rate, grout pressure and volume loss. In ad...

This paper investigates the dynamic characteristics of ground vibrations induced by moving vehicles including the mass rapid transit system, high-speed train railway, and general railway on bridges, embankments, and in tunnels using field experiments and theoretical solutions. The results indicate that train-induced ground vibrations at the trainload dominant frequencies are significantly large for both subsonic and supersonic train speeds, and the vibrations from carriage natural frequencies and engine frequencies are minor. For trains moving on bridges, the resonant vibrations are serious when the natural frequencies of the bridge are close to the trainload dominant frequencies, but resonance does not occur when the carriage natural frequencies and trainload dominant frequencies match. The trainload dominant frequency and its influence factor can be computed using the two simple equations deducted in this paper.

This paper is concerned with the selection of a candidate joint development station (JDS) for a Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system. We propose a method to reach consensus for a group decision on the basis of a combination of the analytic hierarchy process and the assurance region model of data envelopment analysis. Several strategies for using this methodology—for example, Delphi procedures—are also discussed. On the basis of these analyses, the evaluators (council members) responsible for recommending the proper candidate JDS for an MRT system in Taichung City, Taiwan, came up with two contenders from among five: one station in Taichung's CBD area and the other in the Situn district. It was not possible to discriminate between the two using multiple criteria for evaluating stations. The evaluators recommended these two stations to the city council, who should now be able to make an informed, objective decision. In this report we have summarized, with emphasis on the methodological aspects, the decision-making processes that the evaluators followed.

The Bukit Panjang light rapid transit (LRT) system, a groundbreaking project for the Land Transport Authority of Singapore, was designed to serve as a feeder to the existing mass rapid transit network and the Bukit Panjang bus interchange. The main civil engineering elements consist of 7·8 km of twin-track elevated guideway, 14 stations and a maintenance depot with an operation control centre. The system was completed and opened to the public in November 1999. This paper discusses the design and construction of the LRT guideway, which consists mainly of precast prestressed concrete segmental box girder bridges with epoxy glued joints and internally prestressed tendons. The bridge decks are predominantly simply supported spans ranging from 15 to 34 m; however, a few special decks are made continuous due to stability requirements. Two overhead launching girders were employed for erecting the guideway. Due to specific site constraints and system requirements, the alignment was characterised by numerous tight curves with a minimum horizontal radius of 60 m. The geometry control method and construction equipment, such as the casting cells and the launching girders, were tailor-made in order to tackle the unconventional situation. Some operation and maintenance aspects of the system are also covered in this paper.

Construction of the mass rapid transit system (MRT) is of great importance both to rationally utilizing the economical resource and optimizing the overall arrangement of urban land use. However, the decisionmaking process is always influenced by some subjective factors. In this paper, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method is introduced to design an evaluation model for the decisionmaking process of 3 RMT systems. Due to excessive indices, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to deal with weighted processing in order to get synthetical indices to make evaluation simple. Relatively important coefficients are introduced to the target function of DEA to resolve the traditional DEA's dependence on the input-output data completely, which fails to reflect the actual important degree of the indices. It is testified that combined method of DEA/AHP is adaptive and maneuverable in the process of decisionmaking for MRT systems.

This article addresses two questions related to an incident related to the author comparing the subways of New York and Taiwan. Why do the majority of residents of Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan, hold a highly positive view about their Jie-yun, officially known as the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system? Why do they put up with the many regulations imposed by the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC), a city government agency in charge of the daily operation of the MRT, even though they may behave differently outside the subway system?

This paper attempts to explore factors influencing car ownership and car use rates. Through regression analysis, the effects of common urban transport policy measures on car ownership and car use rates are estimated. In addition, dynamics of the urban transport system through feedback loops diagram is examined at the macro-level. Our analysis suggests that common policy measures intended to control motorization are effective through their effects more on car use rate than on car ownership rate. Likewise, Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) can play a significant role in improving overall condition of urban transport. However, the impact of MRT would be insignificant if the investment is committed too late. A simple index for MRT timing has been proposed that could help policy makers from cities without MRT systems to make judgments about the appropriate timing of MRT investment. Regression results, feedback loops diagram and proposed index for MRT timing offer new insights for formulating policy measures for sustainable urban transport in East Asian megacities.

The Delhi Metro (DM) is a mass rapid transit system serving the National Capital Region of India. It is also the world’s first rail project to earn carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations for reductions in CO2 emissions. Did the DM also lead to localized reduction in three transportation source pollutants? Looking at the period 2004–2006, one of the larger rail extensions of the DM led to a 34 percent reduction in localized CO at a major traffic intersection in the city. Results for NO2 are also suggestive of a decline, while those for PM25 are inconclusive due to missing data. These impacts of pollutant reductions are for the short run. A complete accounting of all long run costs and benefits should be done before building capital intensive metro rail projects.

Most Indian cities are low-rise urban trails and require medium capacity modes only. As per the recommendations of the working group on urban transport for the 12th FYP (Five Years’ Planning), light rail transit (LRT) should be provided in all cities with a population of million plus. The Comprehensive Mobility Plan of Mysore highlights LRT as one of the option of mass transit mode to change the travel characteristics from a primarily private mode based to a mass transport based. The goal of the project is to analyse the role of LRT in the existing transportation system and existing land use pattern in Mysore. On account of ideal travel demand, engineering and land use compatibility, LRT emerges as a feasible mode of travel in Mysore.

In this paper, the forensic investigation of a subway tunnel construction failure occurred in Kaohsiung, Taiwan is presented. The studied construction failure occurred during a cross-pass tunnel excavation of a shield tunnel construction work of the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit system, and had resulted in severed tunnel collapse and extensive ground failure that even reached to ground surface 30 m above the tunnel depth. In order to investigate such a serious construction failure, particular soil testing programs and geophysical testing methods were carried out to access the possible failure scenario of the investigated case. Information presented in this paper is hoped to be helpful to improve engineers’ knowledge for preventing similar construction risks.

Understanding how people use public transport is important for the operation and future planning of the underlying transport networks. We have therefore developed and deployed a traffic measurement system for a key player in the transportation industry to gain insights into crowd behavior for planning purposes. The system has been in operation for several months and reports, at hourly intervals, (1) the crowdedness of subway stations, (2) the flows of people inside interchange stations, and (3) the expected travel time for each possible route in the subway network of Singapore. The core of our system is an efficient algorithm which detects individual subway trips from anonymized real-time data generated by the location based system of Singtel, the country's largest telecommunications company. To assess the accuracy of our system, we engaged an independent market research company to conduct a field study--a manual count of the number of passengers boarding and disembarking at a selected station on three separate days. A strong correlation between the calculations of our algorithm and the manual counts was found. One of our key findings is that travelers do not always choose the route with the shortest travel time in the subway network of Singapore. We have therefore also been developing a mobile app which allows users to plan their trips based on the average travel time between stations.

In less than fifty years, Brazil evolved from a predominantly rural society and economy to a highly urbanized country in which 85 percent of its people now live in urban areas and more than 90 percent of the country’s GDP is generated in the cities. This rapid urbanization process was characterized by a lack of planning and an enduring framework of inequality, resulting in high degrees of concentrated poverty in the urban areas. Much of this urbanization has taken place in metropolitan regions (MRs). MRs have grown more rapidly than the rest of the country, both in population and in GDP terms. In 2010, per capita GDP was higher in MRs than in the rest of the country and metropolitan economies accounted for 70 percent of GDP. At the same time, half of the Brazilian poor and 90 percent of the people living in subnormal conditions were found in metropolitan regions. The recent approval of a new framework for metropolitan governance inBrazil creates the opportunity for debate and evolution regarding several key issues. These include: a) placing metropolitan matters at the forefront of the development arena in Brazil; b) reviewing what has been learned about inter-municipal governance and service delivery; c) estimating resource mobilization needs for metropolitan development; d) coordinating metropolitan land use with transport and housing; e) including metropolitan concerns in any revision of fiscal federalism; and f) promoting environmental sustainability, social inclusion and resilience to disasters and climate change plans at the metropolitan scale. The World Bank can be a partner in addressing these issues. In responding to client demand, the Bank has been providing a range of support to Brazilian states and cities and especially their low- income populations in the areas of infrastructure, social services, slum upgrading, institutional development, river basin management, local economic development, environmental protection, water and sanitation, and transportation.

There is a wide array of public transportation in Singapore. Travelling from one part of Singapore to another is a breeze thanks to a highly penetrative public transport system. The three main modes of public transport in Singapore are the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), buses and taxis. Buses are, by far, the most common form of public transportation in Singapore, followed by the MRT and taxis respectively. Public buses serve almost every part of Singapore, making it the most extensive form of public transportation, while the MRT provides speed and efficiency, especially during peak hours.

Jet grouting is an increasingly used technique for in situ soil improvement in many types of soils, especially in soft clays such as the Singapore marine clay. Among many of its applications, one of the common uses is to improve the ground for deep excavations. In this chapter, quality assurance and quality control for jet grouting works, properties of jet grouted piles, and design and construction issues associated with the use of jet grouted slabs at the base of excavations are presented. These topics are discussed with reference to jet grouting applications in the construction of the cut and cover tunnels at Race Course Road and in the station construction by cut-and-cover method at Clarke Quay station during the construction of the North East Mass Rapid Transit Line in Singapore.

Ground anchors are widely used in excavation projects in soil as active support members with pre-stressed loads. The pre-stressed loads are prescribed by the designers, and these loads are introduced to the tendons through hydraulic jacks during installation. During construction, these loads are being monitored via load cells which are installed at several selected ground anchors. This paper shows the data collected from the construction of several underground stations in a Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project in Malaysia in which ground anchors have been used as temporary supports for the deep excavations. The prescribed lock-off loads are compared with the load cell measurements immediately after lock-off. There are two geological formations where the ground anchors were employed, namely the Kenny Hill Formation consisting of weathered meta-sedimentary rocks, and the Kuala Lumpur Limestone rock formation where the overburden above the rock head consists of alluvial deposit or mine tailings. It is found that the scatter varies between the ground anchors installed at different stations, some of which show distinct bell-shaped probabilistic distributions. Several potential sources of scatter are discussed.