Demand responsive transit (DRT) echoes the new requirements of modern travel on flexibility and carbon reduction, as well as achieving a better match between demand and supply. However, many DRTs still failed. An important step named adaptability analysis helps to understand the context, desirability, and feasibility of introducing DRT. An adaptability analysis includes three sub-questions. Question 1 focuses on policy, regulation, funding, and technologies. Question 2 looks at the interactions of travel demand with operation parameters such as fare and fleet size. Question 3 tries to figure out the impacts of DRT on mobility, society, and the environment. To answer Question 1, macro-level methods collect information and generalise from empirical knowledge, including experience and barriers from real-world operation cases. To answer Question 2, meso-level methods determine the operation mode of DRT by quantifying related factors and establishing evaluation models or boundary condition decision models. To answer Question 3, micro-level methods use microscopic models for simulating the interaction between passengers and vehicles under different scenarios. This paper further discusses the advantages, disadvantages, and future directions of adaptability analysis methods of DRT. Overall, DRT presents great potential and future adaptability analysis should be developed by considering new trends in DRT and more complex and practical-oriented scenarios.

After the rapid expansion of the subway system over the past two decades, some cities are preparing to build more suburban railways. The emergence of suburban railways is bound to change the choice of suburban passenger transportation. This paper studies the factors that affect the choice of travel mode at the construction stage of suburban railways, aiming to design a more rational suburban railway network and urban public transport service system. Taking Shanghai as an example, this study first surveyed revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) among urban-suburban travelers. Then, we used discrete choice models (DCM) and machine learning algorithms to build a travel mode choice model based on data collection and analysis. Furthermore, the importance of each factor was analyzed, and the effects were predicted under several traffic demand management schemes. Finally, this study proposed some strategies for increasing the share of public transport. On the one hand, it is suggested that Shanghai should continue to develop suburban railways and maintain low pricing of public transport services. Considering the construction and operation costs, the government needs to provide certain subsidies to stabilize prices. On the other hand, as passengers are very sensitive to the “last mile” trips in their suburban railway travel, transport planners should strengthen the connection from and to the suburban railway stations by developing services such as shared bikes and shuttle buses. In addition, the results indicated that some traffic demand management measures can also contribute to a larger share of public transport.

Adverse weather has been recognized as an important factor to affect travelers’ activity plans in departure time, transport mode, route taken, or cancellation. In the storm, road waterlogging degrades the capacity of road networks and the service quality of transit systems, which further may affect the supply and demand for transit. Based on a typical case in Shanghai that commuters have no easy access to metro service, this paper aims to explore how transit passengers adapt to different situations in the storm and what emergency plans should be taken accordingly. Derived from the revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) survey results for experienced transit commuters, a nested logit (NL) model was developed to describe the travel behavior of transit commuters. Six alternatives, Direct Bus, Bus + Bus, Metro, Bus + Metro, Taxi, and Cancel Trip, and three storm scenarios were set for transit commuters in this case. Estimated parameters indicate that, in storm weather, crowdedness is less considered by transit commuters, and transfer times, walking time, in-vehicle time, and waiting time have negative effects on the selection of the corresponding alternative, whereas the impact of taxi fare is positive since the higher fare is usually accompanied by worse weather and traffic condition. Sensitivity analysis shows that walking time to metro station, in-vehicle time, and waiting time at a bus stop are the most critical factors leading to transit ridership reduction in the storm. According to this, three possible plans for the transit operator, shuttle bus to the metro station (P1), information announcement (P2), and route adjustment (P3), are simulated and compared. We recommend adopting P2, P2 + P3, and P1 + P2 + P3 in turn with the increase of road waterlogging. These findings have important practical implications for developing transit emergency management plans and serve as references for the transit agencies and operators.

The express/local mode of municipal rail transit provides passengers with multiple alternatives to achieve more efficient and superior travel, in contrast to the conventional all-stop operation mode. However, the various route choices (including direct express trains, direct local trains, or transfers) covering different passenger groups pose a significant challenge to passenger flow assignment. To understand route choice behavior, it is crucial to measure the passenger heterogeneity (variability in individual and trip attributes) in order to propose targeted solutions for operation schemes and service planning. This paper proposes a hybrid model by integrating structural equation modeling and the mixed logit model under express/local mode to estimate the impact of passenger heterogeneity on route choice. An empirical study with revealed preference and stated preference surveys carried out in Shanghai revealed how individual and trip attributes quantitatively impact the sensitivity of factors in route choice. The results show that age and trip purpose are more significant factors. Compared to the control group, the probability of express trains is reduced by 10.22% for the elderly and by 11.36% for non-commuters. Our findings can provide support for more reasonable operation schemes and more targeted services.

Providing convenient transit services at reasonable cost is important for transit agencies. Timed transfers that schedule vehicles from various routes to arrive at some transfer stations simultaneously (or nearly so) can significantly reduce wait times in transit networks, while stochastic passenger flows and complex operating environments may reduce this improvement. Although transit priority methods have been applied in some high-density cities, operating delays may cause priority failures. This paper proposes a resilient schedule coordination method for a bus transit corridor, which analyzes link travel time, passenger loading delay, and priority signal intersection delay. It maximizes resilience based on realistic passenger flow volume, whether or not transit priority is provided. The data accuracy and result validity are improved with automatically collected data from multiple bus routes in a corridor. The Yan’an Road transit corridor in Shanghai is used as a case study. The results show that the proposed method can increase the system resilience by balancing operation cost and passenger-based cost. It also provides a guideline for realistic bus schedule coordination.