Public transport (PT) overcrowding is a notorious problem in urban transport networks. Its negative effects upon travel experience can be potentially addressed by disseminating real-time crowding information (RTCI) to passengers. However, impacts of RTCI provision in urban PT networks remain largely unknown. This study aims to contribute by developing an extended dynamic PT simulation model that enables a thorough analysis of instantaneous RTCI consequences. In the model, RTCI is generated and disseminated across the network, and then utilised in passengers’ sequential en-route choices. A case-study demonstration of the RTCI algorithm on urban PT network model of Kraków (Poland) shows that instantaneous RTCI has the potential to improve passengers’ travel experience, although it is also susceptible to inaccuracy. RTCI provision can yield total travel utility improvements of 3% in typical PM peak-hour, with reduced impacts of the worst overcrowding effects (in terms of denied-boarding and in-vehicle travel disutility in overcrowded conditions) of 30%. Highlights:

A common problem in public transport systems is bus bunching, characterized by a negative feedback loop between service headways, number of boarding passengers and dwell times. In this study, we examine whether providing real-time crowding information (RTCI) at the stop regarding the two next vehicle departures can stimulate passengers to wait for a less-crowded departure, and thus alleviate the bunching effect. To this end, we leverage on results from own stated-preference survey and develop a boarding choice model. The model accounts for the presence of RTCI and is implemented within dynamic public transport simulation framework. Application to the case-study model of a major bus corridor in Warsaw (Poland) reveals that RTCI can induce a significant probability (30–70%) of intentionally skipping an overcrowded bus and waiting for a later departure instead. This behaviour, in turn, results in significantly lower vehicle headway and load variations, without deteriorations in total waiting utility. Overall, journey experience improves by 6%, and crucially—the prevalence of denial-of-boarding and excessive on-board overcrowding is substantially reduced, by ca. 40%. Results of our study indicate that the willingness to wait induced by RTCI can be a potential demand management strategy in counteracting bunching, with benefits already attainable at limited RTCI response rates.

Public transport (PT) service disruptions are common and unexpected events which often result in major impediment to passengers’ typical travel routines. However, attitudes and behavioural responses to unexpected PT disruptions are still not fully understood in state-of-the-art research. The objective of this study is to examine how PT users adapt their travel choices and what travel information sources they utilize once they encounter sudden PT service disruptions. To this end, we conduct a passenger survey among PT users in the city of Kraków (Poland), consisting of a series of stated- and revealed-preference questions. Results show that passengers’ reported choices during past PT disruptions mostly involve adjusting the current PT travel routine, exposing a certain bias with their stated choices (which tend to overestimate the probability of modal shifts). Factors influencing travel behaviour shifts include frequency and recency of PT disruption experience, as well as propensity to arrive on-time. With regards to travel information sources, staff announcement and personal experience play an important role in recognizing the emerging disruption, but real-time information (RTI) sources are the most useful in planning the onward journey afterwards. Based on these, we highlight the implications for future RTI policy during PT service disruptions; in particular, the provision of a reliable time estimate until normal service conditions are resumed. Such RTI content could foster passengers’ tendency to use PT services in uncertain conditions, especially as their stated wait time tolerance often matches the actual duration of PT disruptions.

The objective of this paper is to propose a method to analyse and describe cyclists’ behaviour at signalized intersections with specific focus on the multichannel (multi-lane) queue phenomenon. As we observed, cyclists form queues without a fixed-lane and FIFO discipline, for which the classical, car-oriented analytical approach becomes insufficient. Cyclists’ multichannel queueing behaviour is common and characterized by substantial degree of variability, especially in case of shorter queues which emerge regularly at cycle crossings. Although cyclist behaviour has been widely studied by transportation research community, their queueing behaviour picture is still incomplete. Namely, there is no method addressed to analyse the full scope of these phenomena and to quantify their impact on the cyclist queue performance. To bridge this gap, we introduce the technique to observe multichannel queues and report relevant observations, which we then complement with a methodological framework to analyse obtained results and provide a complete multichannel queue description. We video-record cyclists as they enqueue to one of multiple channels, form the queue and smoothly merge into a single lane again as the queue discharges. We apply the method to analyse results from a pilot study of 160 cyclists forming 50 queues in the city of Krakow, Poland. The proposed method allows us to analyse and quantify the observed queue performance and its characteristics: the number of channels, their emergence process, channel and queue lengths, discharge process with FIFO violations, starting and discharging times. Findings from pilot study reveal that both queue length and discharge times strongly depend on queue formation process. The contribution of this paper is the method to describe multichannel cyclist queueing behaviour, enriching current picture of bicycle flow and cyclists’ behaviour. Since the method has been developed on relatively short queues (up to 10 cyclists), findings included in this paper primarily refer to such queue sizes. Nonetheless, the method is formulated in a generic way, applicable also for longer bicycle queues. Possible practical implications are new estimates for queue lengths and discharge times - useful for bicycle infrastructure design and traffic engineering purposes.

We propose a new method to estimate benefits of road network improvements, which allows to include the induced demand without arbitrary assumptions. Instead of estimating induced demand (which is nontrivial and hardly possible in practice), we search for demand induction where initial benefits are mitigated to zero. Such approach allows to formulate a dual measure of benefit, covering both the potential benefits and the likelihood of consuming them by the induced traffic. We first estimate benefits of road network improvement assuming that traffic demand is fixed. Consequently, we find demand model configurations at which the benefits of the new investment become null, i.e., all the initial benefits are consumed by the traffic demand growth. We call such states of induced demand the Lewis–Mogridge points of the analysed improvement. We select the most probable of such points and use it to calculate the proposed novel indicator μ, for which the initial benefits (obtained under a fixed-demand assumption) are multiplied with a demand increase rate needed to consume them. We believe that such measure allows to include the critical phenomena of induced traffic and, at the same time, to overcome problems associated with reliable estimation of induced demand. As we illustrate with the case of two alternative road improvement schemes in Kraków, Poland, the proposed method allows to estimate maximal threshold of induced traffic and to select scenario more resilient to induced traffic.

The “renaissance” of urban rail transport as a means of efficient and sustainable urban mobility systems is an increasingly popular theme in mid-sized cities. However, such cities often grapple with the uncertainty of new public transport (PT) modes’ effectiveness, which requires proper analytical underpinning. In this study, we assess the implications of introducing a new light rail (LRT) vs. heavy rail (HRT) transport solution in the case study city of Rzeszow, Poland, using transport simulation and accessibility models. The results reveal a more advantageous performance of an LRT-based tram system, whose benefits are enhanced by reduced road capacity in the city center and long-term shifts in mobility behavior. Ultimately, the PT capacity utilization with LRT improved by 12%, PT modal share rose from 28% to 35%, and inner-city car traffic loads declined by 20%. Our findings reaffirm that in concentric, mid-sized cities such as Rzeszow, urban rail transport should be based on a high coverage, high-frequency LRT (e.g., tram) mode, which can form an effective backbone of the city PT system. Our study contributes to research on how new urban rail systems can help reverse the decline of PT ridership and facilitate the sustainable urban (re)development of mid sized cities.