Effects of Line-Capacity Reductions on Urban Rail Transit System Service Performance
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146, Issue 10
Abstract
In the daily operations of urban rail transit (URT) systems, line capacity sometimes is reduced, which worsens service performance. To measure the effects of line capacity reductions on URT system service performance in a given period, a passenger satisfaction metric and a service quality metric are proposed. The passengers’ generalized travel cost (GTC) is the sum of the monetary value of perceived travel time and travel fare, because perceived travel time can reflect the value of the seat availability and transfer times. When line capacity is reduced, passengers are divided into three categories. Passengers in Categories 1 and 2 still can travel on URT, whereas passengers in Category 3 cannot, due to insufficient capacities on their paths. During reductions in line capacity, the relative GTC stays below a fixed GTC threshold for passengers in Category 1, and above it for passengers in Category 2. Passengers in Category 1 receive acceptable service because their GTC increases only slightly. The fraction of passengers in Category 1 and the average GTC per passenger in Categories 1 and 2 in a given period are defined as passenger satisfaction and service quality metrics, respectively. The system service performance in Wuhan, China’s URT during morning peak periods and the effect of providing discount fares on system service performance were computed for separate capacity reductions in each rail line. The results show that the proposed indicators and methods can identify the critical lines that greatly affect URT system service performance. The proposed indicators also can identify the number of lines with reduced capacity and the capacity reduction ratios that a URT system can withstand while maintaining particular system service levels. Providing discount fares is an effective way to improve URT system service performance when a line’s capacity is reduced slightly.
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Data Availability Statement
Some data, models used in the study are available from the corresponding author by request, including transport capacities and average headway of lines, travel time of links, and OD flow distributions.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the manager of Wuhan’s URT system for providing relevant data. The authors acknowledge the support of National Key R & D Program of China (2017YFB1200700).
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146 • Issue 10 • October 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 28, 2019
Accepted: Jun 4, 2020
Published online: Aug 3, 2020
Published in print: Oct 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jan 3, 2021
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