scholarly journals A COVID-19 Public Transport Frequency Setting Model That Includes Short-Turning Options

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Yoran de Weert ◽  
Konstantinos Gkiotsalitis

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on the public transport sector. After the start of the pandemic, passenger demand dropped significantly for public transport services. In addition, social distancing measures have resulted in introducing pandemic-imposed capacity limitations to public transport vehicles. Consequently, public transport operators should adjust their planning to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study introduces a mixed-integer quadratic program that sets the optimal frequencies of public transport lines and sublines in order to conform with the pandemic-imposed capacity. The focus is on cases where the public transport demand is high, but the crowding levels inside public transport vehicles should remain below the pandemic-imposed capacities. Of particular interest are public transport lines with skewed demand profiles that can benefit from the introduction of short-turning sublines that serve the high-demand line segments. The frequency setting model is tested on a network containing two high-demand bus lines in the Twente region in the Netherlands, and it demonstrates that the revenue losses due to social distancing can be reduced when implementing short-turning service patterns.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (S.I.2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreea Daniela TUDOR

The COVID-19 pandemic had and it’s still having a big impact on mobility since the end of 2018, when it started. Public transportation was already facing issues in all the big metropolitan cities where many people are in the same space at the same time. If we add the COVID-19 consequences and rules, public transit is the main barrier for community members to go back to their daily routines being safe and comfortable. This paper presents the changes in the public transport sector since COVID-19 started and aims to explore the consequences and possible alternatives to mitigate the impact of the pandemic crisis. As research method I decided to analyze and summarize numerous primary sources along with the public transport operators’ official websites. Both quantitative and qualitative data were used by doing a comprehensive research in ProQuest Central, Coronavirus Research Database, Elsevier ScienceDirect and Web of Science. The results suggest that reduction of mobility has been the first measure to slow the growth of the worldwide COVID-19 cases. However, the transport limitations don’t have the same impact for all modes of transport, public transport having one of the most considerable decline so far. In Bucharest, the public transport operators have imposed safety measures such as mask wearing, periodic cleaning, transparency and access to the information. Those aspects are important, but sometimes not sufficient to fight against the pandemic. What this research does is to come and complete the set of safety measures focusing on mitigating the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and increase the safety of the people while using public transport vehicles.


Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thiago Nogueira ◽  
Pamela Dominutti ◽  
Marcelo Vieira-Filho ◽  
Adalgiza Fornaro ◽  
Maria Andrade

The broad expanse of the urban metropolitan area of São Paulo (MASP) has made buses, the predominant public transport mode for commuters in the city. In 2016, the bus fleet in the MASP reached 56,354 buses and it was responsible for more than 12 million daily trips. Here, we evaluate for the first time, the emission profile of gaseous and particulate pollutants from buses running on 7% biodiesel + 93% petroleum diesel and their spatial distribution in the MASP. This novel study, based on four bus terminal experiments, provides an extensive analysis of atmospheric pollutants of interest to public health and climate changes, such as CO2, CO, NOx, VOCs, PM10, PM2.5 and their constituents (black carbon (BC) and elements). Our results suggest that the renovation of the bus fleet from Euro II to Euro V and the incorporation of electric buses had a noticeable impact (by a factor of up to three) on the CO2 emissions and caused a decrease in NO emissions, by a factor of four to five. In addition, a comparison with previous Brazilian studies, shows that the newer bus fleet in the MASP emits fewer particles. Emissions from the public transport sector have implications for public health and air quality, not only by introducing reactive pollutants into the atmosphere but also by exposing the commuters to harmful concentrations. Our findings make a relevant contribution to the understanding of emissions from diesel-powered buses and about the impact of these new vehicular technologies on the air quality in the MASP.


Author(s):  
T. Pearce ◽  
D.A.C. Maunder ◽  
T. C. Mbara ◽  
D. M. Babu ◽  
T. Rwebangira

Countries of the developing world are characterized by rapid urbanization, high growth rates of traffic and congestion, and decreasing regulation of public transport. Because the majority of the developing world’s inhabitants depend on public transport services for their mobility needs, safe, effective, and efficient public transport is essential to ensure adequate and affordable accessibility and the sustainable development of livelihoods in the rural and urban sectors. The operational environment of the public transport sector in Nepal, India, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe is examined, as well as the extent of accidents involving public transport vehicles and the likely causes. Finally, recommendations are made to reduce both the severity and the number of public transport accidents.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Yatskiv ◽  
Eugene Kopytov ◽  
Domenico Casellato ◽  
Giuseppe Luppino ◽  
Rob McDonald

Abstract The development of the Public Transport (PT) services in the last decade is characterized by wide implementation of various information systems and technologies, which cover different transport services, such as traffic planning, traffic network monitoring, management of operation of PT fleets, providing information to the passengers, ticketing payment, etc. The article considers the research part of a large EU-funded project POLITE aimed at public transport sector and increasing the awareness of infomobility services and PT attractiveness through the application of identified Good Practices and Best Practices. The objective of this paper is presentation of the methodology of benchmarking and assessment of Good Practices and choice of the best one on the basis of the multi-criteria comparative analysis. For assessment of Good Practices the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method is applied.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-67
Author(s):  
Vladimír Konečný ◽  
Mária Brídziková

AbstractThe paper deals with the research of the demand and supply of public passenger transport services in the state of emergency caused by the COVID-19 disease. The extraordinary situation has been affecting the behaviour and decision-making of passengers and their demand for public transport not only in the Slovak Republic but globally. The situation has caused a significant decline in passenger transport as well as changes in the structure of passengers who still use the public transport system. Several operators have responded to declining demand by reducing the transport services supply, to reduce operating costs. The declining demand is reflected in a decrease in transport revenues and an increase in the demonstrable loss of operators providing public passenger transport services.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4384
Author(s):  
Hanhee Kim ◽  
Niklas Hartmann ◽  
Maxime Zeller ◽  
Renato Luise ◽  
Tamer Soylu

This paper shows the results of an in-depth techno-economic analysis of the public transport sector in a small to midsize city and its surrounding area. Public battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses are comparatively evaluated by means of a total cost of ownership (TCO) model building on historical data and a projection of market prices. Additionally, a structural analysis of the public transport system of a specific city is performed, assessing best fitting bus lines for the use of electric or hydrogen busses, which is supported by a brief acceptance evaluation of the local citizens. The TCO results for electric buses show a strong cost decrease until the year 2030, reaching 23.5% lower TCOs compared to the conventional diesel bus. The optimal electric bus charging system will be the opportunity (pantograph) charging infrastructure. However, the opportunity charging method is applicable under the assumption that several buses share the same station and there is a “hotspot” where as many as possible bus lines converge. In the case of electric buses for the year 2020, the parameter which influenced the most on the TCO was the battery cost, opposite to the year 2030 in where the bus body cost and fuel cost parameters are the ones that dominate the TCO, due to the learning rate of the batteries. For H2 buses, finding a hotspot is not crucial because they have a similar range to the diesel ones as well as a similar refueling time. H2 buses until 2030 still have 15.4% higher TCO than the diesel bus system. Considering the benefits of a hypothetical scaling-up effect of hydrogen infrastructures in the region, the hydrogen cost could drop to 5 €/kg. In this case, the overall TCO of the hydrogen solution would drop to a slightly lower TCO than the diesel solution in 2030. Therefore, hydrogen buses can be competitive in small to midsize cities, even with limited routes. For hydrogen buses, the bus body and fuel cost make up a large part of the TCO. Reducing the fuel cost will be an important aspect to reduce the total TCO of the hydrogen bus.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 2969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordan Stojić ◽  
Dušan Mladenović ◽  
Olegas Prentkovskis ◽  
Slavko Vesković

In free market conditions, if public passenger transport services are commercially unprofitable, there will be no interest for transport companies to perform them. However, directly because of the citizens’ interests, on the one hand, and indirectly because of the economy, passenger public transport services have become of a general public interest. The authorities must prepare appropriate legal fair market conditions, based on which public transport will be subsidized and conducted. In order to achieve that, for the mutual benefit of the public, users and transport companies, it is necessary that the right Public Service Obligation Model (PSO model or in some literature PCS—Public Service Compensation) be defined. Within this study, the optimal approach to assigning a PSC contract to transport companies for performing the PSO in integrated and regular public passenger transport systems is determined. A novel model, presented in this paper, can help national, regional and local authorities to choose and determine the way and level of PSCs for conducting the public transport of passengers and establishing a sustainable public passenger transport system.


TRANSPORTES ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquim Jose Guilherme de Aragão

<p>Na presente contribuição, analisa-se a experiência britânica de desregulamentação do transporte publico de passageiro. Inicialmente, retomam-se as discussões que colocaram em questão o padrão comum de envolvimento do Estado nesses serviços, que é de regulamentá-lo fortemente, subsidiá-lo e até de operá-lo. Descrevem-se as medidas colocadas em prática pelo governo britânico para reintroduzir a pura lógica de mercado no setor, assim como as justificativas por ele declaradas. Em seguida, são resumidas as avaliações por parte de diversas fontes, da dita experiência, sendo esse resumo sistematizado nos submodos transporte urbano, transporte rodoviário interurbano e transporte rural. Após esse relato, retoma-se o confronto de discussões, desta vez das realizadas depois da implantação do processo. Por fim, a luz dessas análises e a título de conclusão, algumas indagações sobre a estrutura econômica e institucional do setor de transporte publico são colocadas pelo autor.</p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong></p><p>In the present contribution, the British public passenger transport deregulation experience is analyzed. Initially, the discussions which put into question the common role of State with respect to these services (strong regulation, subsidies and even direct operation by government) are resumed. The measures taken by the British Government in order to reintroduce market orientation into the sector and also their justifications are then described. In a further section, the evaluations made by several studies on deregulation experience are systemized with respect to urban, intercity rural transport. After this description, the opinions and positions put after the ion of the deregulation experiation are resumed. Finally and conclusively, the author puts some questions on the economic and institutional structure of the public transport sector.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (S3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Toniato ◽  
Prakhar Mehta ◽  
Stevan Marinkovic ◽  
Verena Tiefenbeck

AbstractThe transport sector is responsible for 25% of global CO2 emissions. To reduce emissions in the EU, a shift from the currently 745,000 operating public buses to electric buses (EBs) is expected in the coming years. Large-scale deployments of EBs and the electrification of bus depots will have a considerable impact on the local electric grid, potentially creating network congestion problems and spikes in the local energy load. In this work, we implement an exact, offline, modular multi-variable mixed-integer linear optimization algorithm to minimize the daily power load profile peak and optimally plan an electric bus depot. The algorithm accepts a bus depot schedule as input, and depending on the user input on optimization conditions, accounts for varying time granularity, preemption of the charging phase, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging capabilities and varying fleet size. The primary objective of this work is the analysis of the impact of each of these input conditions on the resulting minimized peak load. The results show that our optimization algorithm can reduce peak load by 83% on average. Time granularity and V2G have the greatest impact on peak reduction, whereas preemption and fleet splitting have the greatest impact on the computational time but an insignificant impact on peak reduction. The results bear relevance for mobility planners to account for innovative fleet management options. Depot infrastructure costs can be minimized by optimally sizing the infrastructure needs, by relying on split-fleet management or V2G options.


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