Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
2,827
result(s) for
"Transportation Research Methodology."
Sort by:
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mobility in ten countries and associated perceived risk for all transport modes
The restrictive measures implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have triggered sudden massive changes to travel behaviors of people all around the world. This study examines the individual mobility patterns for all transport modes (walk, bicycle, motorcycle, car driven alone, car driven in company, bus, subway, tram, train, airplane) before and during the restrictions adopted in ten countries on six continents: Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa and the United States. This cross-country study also aims at understanding the predictors of protective behaviors related to the transport sector and COVID-19. Findings hinge upon an online survey conducted in May 2020 (N = 9,394). The empirical results quantify tremendous disruptions for both commuting and non-commuting travels, highlighting substantial reductions in the frequency of all types of trips and use of all modes. In terms of potential virus spread, airplanes and buses are perceived to be the riskiest transport modes, while avoidance of public transport is consistently found across the countries. According to the Protection Motivation Theory, the study sheds new light on the fact that two indicators, namely income inequality, expressed as Gini index, and the reported number of deaths due to COVID-19 per 100,000 inhabitants, aggravate respondents’ perceptions. This research indicates that socio-economic inequality and morbidity are not only related to actual health risks, as well documented in the relevant literature, but also to the perceived risks. These findings document the global impact of the COVID-19 crisis as well as provide guidance for transportation practitioners in developing future strategies.
Journal Article
Robotized and Automated Warehouse Systems: Review and Recent Developments
Robotic handling systems are increasingly applied in distribution centers. They require little space, provide flexibility in managing varying demand requirements, and are able to work 24/7. This makes them particularly fit for e-commerce operations. This paper reviews new categories of automated and robotic handling systems, such as shuttle-based storage and retrieval systems, shuttle-based compact storage systems, and robotic mobile fulfillment systems. For each system, we categorize the literature in three groups: system analysis, design optimization, and operations planning and control. Our focus is to identify the research issue and operations research modeling methodology adopted to analyze the problem. We find that many new robotic systems and applications have hardly been studied in academic literature, despite their increasing use in practice. Because of unique system features (such as autonomous control, flexible layout, networked and dynamic operation), new models and methods are needed to address the design and operational control challenges for such systems, in particular, for the integration of subsystems. Integrated robotic warehouse systems will form the next category of warehouses. All vital warehouse design, planning, and control logic, such as methods to design layout, storage and order-picking system selection, storage slotting, order batching, picker routing, and picker to order assignment, will have to be revisited for new robotized warehouses.
Journal Article
Understanding bikeability: a methodology to assess urban networks
A fully separated bicycle network from vehicular traffic is not realistic even for the most bicycle-friendly cities. Thus, all around the world urban cycling entails switching between streets of different safety, convenience, and comfort levels. As a consequence, the quality of bicycle networks should be evaluated not based on one but multiple factors and by considering the different user preferences regarding these factors. More comprehensive methodologies to assess urban bicycle networks are essential to the operation and planning of modern city transportation. This work proposes a multi-objective methodology to assess—what we refer to as—bikeability between origin–destination locations and over the entire network, useful for evaluation and planning of bicycle networks. We do so by introducing the concept of bikeability curves which allows us to assess the quality of cycling in a city network with respect to the heterogeneity of user preferences. The application of the proposed methodology is demonstrated on two cities with different bike cultures: Amsterdam and Melbourne. Our results suggest the effectiveness of bikeability curves in describing the characteristic features and differences in the two networks.
Journal Article
Blind classification of e-scooter trips according to their relationship with public transport
E-scooter services have multiplied worldwide as a form of urban transport. Their use has grown so quickly that policymakers and researchers still need to understand their interrelation with other transport modes. At present, e-scooter services are primarily seen as a first-and-last-mile solution for public transport. However, we demonstrate that 50% of e-scooter trips are either substituting it or covering areas with little public transportation infrastructure. To this end, we have developed a novel data-driven methodology that autonomously classifies e-scooter trips according to their relation to public transit. Instead of predefined design criteria, the blind nature of our approach extracts the city’s intrinsic parameters from real data. We applied this methodology to Rome (Italy), and our findings reveal that e-scooters provide specific mobility solutions in areas with particular needs. Thus, we believe that the proposed methodology will contribute to the understanding of e-scooter services as part of shared urban mobility.
Journal Article
Identification and quantification of link vulnerability in multi-level public transport networks: a passenger perspective
Robust public transport networks are important, since disruptions decrease the public transport accessibility of areas. Despite this importance, the full passenger impacts of public transport network vulnerability have not yet been considered in science and practice. We have developed a methodology to identify the most vulnerable links in the total, multi-level public transport network and to quantify the societal costs of link vulnerability for these identified links. Contrary to traditional single-level network approaches, we consider the integrated, total multi-level PT network in the identification and quantification of link vulnerability, including PT services on other network levels which remain available once a disturbance occurs. We also incorporate both exposure to large, non-recurrent disturbances and the impacts of these disturbances explicitly when identifying and quantifying link vulnerability. This results in complete and realistic insights into the negative accessibility impacts of disturbances. Our methodology is applied to a case study in the Netherlands, using a dataset containing 2.5 years of disturbance information. Our results show that especially crowded links of the light rail/metro network are vulnerable, due to the combination of relatively high disruption exposure and relatively high passenger flows. The proposed methodology allows quantification of robustness benefits of measures, in addition to the costs of these measures. Showing the value of robustness, our work can support and rationalize the decision-making process of public transport operators and authorities regarding the implementation of robustness measures.
Journal Article
Urban rapid rail transit and gentrification in Canadian urban centres: A survival analysis approach
Despite the existing knowledge that urban rapid rail transit has many effects on surrounding areas, and despite some attempts to understand the links between transit and gentrification, there remain methodological gaps in the research. This study addresses the relationship between the implementation of urban rapid rail transit and gentrification, which is conceived of as an event. As such, an event analysis approach using 'survival analysis' is adopted as the statistical analytical tool. It tests whether proximity to rail transit is related to the onset of gentrification in census tracts in Canada's largest cities. It is found that proximity to rail transit, and to other gentrifying census tracts, have a statistically significant effect on gentrification in two of the three cities analysed. By providing a methodological framework for the empirical analysis of the impact of urban rail transit on gentrification, this paper is a reference for both researchers and transportation planners.
Journal Article
How do built-environment factors affect travel behavior? A spatial analysis at different geographic scales
Much of the literature shows that a compact city with well-mixed land use tends to produce lower vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and consequently lower energy consumption and less emissions. However, a significant portion of the literature indicates that the built environment only generates some minor—if any—influence on travel behavior. Through the literature review, we identify four major methodological problems that may have resulted in these conflicting conclusions: self-selection, spatial autocorrelation, inter-trip dependency, and geographic scale. Various approaches have been developed to resolve each of these issues separately, but few efforts have been made to reexamine the built environment-travel behavior relationship by considering these methodological issues simultaneously. The objective of this paper is twofold: (1) to better understand the existing methodological gaps, and (2) to reexamine the effects of built-environment factors on transportation by employing a framework that incorporates recently developed methodological approaches. Using the Seattle metropolitan region as our study area, the 2006 Household Activity Survey and the 2005 parcel and building data are used in our analysis. The research employs Bayesian hierarchical models with built-environment factors measured at different geographic scales. Spatial random effects based on a conditional autoregressive specification are incorporated in the hierarchical model framework to account for spatial contiguity among Traffic Analysis Zones. Our findings indicate that land use factors have highly significant effects on VMT even after controlling for travel attitude and spatial autocorrelation. In addition, our analyses suggest that some of these effects may translate into different empirical results depending on geographic scales and tour types.
Journal Article
Modelling the resilience of rail passenger transport networks affected by large-scale disruptive events: the case of HSR (high speed rail)
This paper deals with modelling the dynamic resilience of rail passenger transport networks affected by large-scale disruptive events whose impacts deteriorate the networks’ planned infrastructural, operational, economic, and social-economic performances represented by the selected indicators. The indicators of infrastructural performances refer to the physical and operational conditions of the networks’ lines and stations, and supportive facilities and equipment. Those of the operational performances include transport services scheduled along particular routes, their seating capacity, and corresponding transport work/capacity. The indicators of economic performances include the costs of cancelled and long-delayed transport services imposed on the main actors/stakeholder involved—the rail operator(s) and users/passengers. The indicators of social-economic performances reflect the compromised accessibility and consequent prevention of the user/passenger trips and their contribution to the local/regional/national Gross Domestic Product. Modeling resulted in developing a methodology including two sets of analytical models for: (1) assessing the dynamic resilience of a given rail network, i.e., before, during, and after the impacts of disruptive event(s); and (2) estimation of the indicators of particular performances as the figures-of-merit for assessing the network’s resilience under the given conditions. As such, the methodology could be used for estimating the resilience of different topologies of rail passenger networks affected by past, current, and future disruptive events, the latest according to the “what-if” scenario approach and after introducing the appropriate assumptions. The methodology has been applied to a past case—the Japanese Shinkansen HSR network affected by a large-scale disruptive event—the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011.
Journal Article
Quality of Service in Public Transport Based on Customer Satisfaction Surveys: A Review and Assessment of Methodological Approaches
The growth of literature in the field of quality of service in the public transport (PT) sector shows increasing concern for a better understanding of the factors affecting service quality (SQ) in PT organizations and companies. A large variety of approaches to SQ have been developed in recent years owing to the complexity of the concept; the broad range of attributes required to evaluate SQ; and the imprecision, subjectivity, and heterogeneous nature of the data used to analyze it. Most of these approaches are based on customer satisfaction surveys. This paper seeks to summarize the evolution of research and current thinking as it relates to the different methodological approaches for SQ evaluation in the PT sector over the years and to provide a discussion of future directions.
Journal Article