The City of Kingston wishes to
have a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) strategy developed and
implemented to maintain and improve the overall function of the City’s
transportation system. TDM strategies attempt to minimize the negative
external impacts of travel - congestion, air pollution, excessive land
consumption, and social exclusion - by minimizing the need for, and
maximizing the efficiency of, transportation.
The WPTI approach to developing
and achieving meaningful changes through TDM is to influence positively
the behaviour of all stakeholders. WPTI has
identified the following four general strategies which will be advanced
and customized in developing the TDM strategy for Kingston.
1. Provide meaningful transportation options for more
trips
2.
Educate stakeholders
3. Recommend and enact policy
4. Maximize the efficiency of automobile travel
The outcome of this project will be a formal TDM strategy - contained in a written report presented to the City of Kingston - that incorporates the four components identified above. In addition, the relative strengths and costs of each component in achieving TDM objectives will be identified. Specific projects, policies, programs and partnerships will be recommended and sequenced to maximize their benefits. Social, political, and fiscal obstacles will be identified; measures to overcome these challenges will be documented.
Over the last decades Mexico City
has sprawled into surrounding municipalities located in the
State of
Mexico.
This growth challenges the adequate provision of services, including
adequate transportation options. In response to these trends,
governments at different levels have initiated various mass transit
projects to improve and modify travel mode choices. Beginning in 2001,
authorities embarked on the construction of a commuter rail system to
provide transportation alternatives for suburban commuters. The proposed
research project will determine the feasibility of a third line –
connecting the city of Chalco in the State of Mexico to two possible
metro stations – La Paz (linea A) and Constitución de 1917 – in the
Federal District of Mexico City.
WPTI researchers designed and implemented a stated preference survey to determine generalized cost parameters used in a multimodal travel forecasting model. Specifically, our work involved estimates of value of time and the relative importance of travel time components (access, waiting, egress, and in-vehicle) for populations from various socio-economic backgrounds and for various trip parameters.
The Hajj attracts approximately 3 million pilgrims each year. These pilgrims converge on the cities of Makkah to perform the Hajj rituals. The safe and efficient transportation of these pilgrims through the various locations of the Hajj is an enormously challenging problem. Approximately 30,000 motor coach buses are used during the Hajj particularly to transport pilgrims from between the Holy Areas (Arafat, Muzdalifah, Mina).
Evidence from previous Hajjs suggests that the journey from Arafat to Muzdalifah, a distance of only approximately 10 km, may take as long as 5 to 6 hours as a result of extremely congested roadways. Given the necessity for pilgrims to complete this journey within a six hour period, this level of congestion represents a significant transportation bottleneck within the Hajj. It is anticipated that more efficient monitoring, dispatching, and control of motor coaches may significantly decrease congestion and journey times, and reduce the likelihood of pilgrims taking more than 6 hours to complete their journey. However, little quantitative data exists to describe the existing operating characteristics of the motor coach transportation. Furthermore, it is not clear which type of technology is best suited for the monitoring of motor coach movements.
In this project, GPS data loggers acquire detailed motor coach position, speed, and heading measurements at a frequency on the order of one second. These data are used to verify the accuracy and reliability of supplementary RFID data. The combination of GPS and RFID data provides a base-line database that quantitatively describes the existing level of service of motor coach transportation during the Hajj. This set of data can be used to identify specific operational bottlenecks; calibrate simulation models; and support the identification of motor coach deployment strategies that would increase system performance.
Kingston Transit has identified that a review and redesign of the system is the most important priority of help improve service quality, operational effectiveness and ultimately increase ridership. Through this, the City of Kingston has engaged the services of WPTI to:
In addition, WPTI will complete a report recommending a transit network structure including candidate modes (i.e. express roues and local service). The report will specify immediate, short-term (1 year), mid-term (3 years), and long term (6-10 years) implementation of recommendations. It is expected that the implemetation of recommended changes will occur in 2010.
In 2005 Grand River Transit (GRT) initiated the iXpress express bus service within the Region of Waterloo. Over the following 4 years, GRT initiated a number of supporting technologies and programs including transit signal priority, onboard automatic vehicle location system (AVLS) and automatic passenger counting system (APCS), a web-based trip planner, pedestrian and cycling accessibility improvements, and an individualized marketing program. Dr. Hellinga led a team responsible for developing and implementing appropriate evaluation plans to measure the separate and combined impacts of these project elements, particularly in terms of green house gas emissions. These evaluation activities have made use of a wide range of methods including micro-simulation, statistical modeling, deterministic and stochastic queuing, and statistical inferences from survey data. Data sources included revealed preference and stated preference surveys; on board passenger surveys; non-rider telephone surveys; household surveys; automatically collected vehicle location and passenger load data; fuel consumption data; web usage data; etc.
The final report from this project is expected to be completed by mid-2009.
The Regional Municipality of Waterloo (the Region) has experienced rapid growth in population and employment which is forecast to continue in upcoming decades. In response to these concerns, Regional and respective local governments have developed long-term land use and transportation plans to better manage urban development, to improve liveability, and to encourage balanced transportation.
Since 2005, the Region has initiated the development of a higher-order rapid transit service to be located along the central transit corridor (CTC); expanded its conventional Grand River Transit (GRT) service; deployed advanced transit technologies such as automatic passenger counting systems (APCS) and automatic vehicle locating systems (AVLS). From these initiatives and the data that were collected, WPTI provides its expertise in the following areas.
1. Evaluating the Region’s travel forecasting model
In planning and designing major infrastructure investments such as the rapid transit initiative, extensive modeling efforts are required to measure the proposed infrastructure’s impact on future system performance. The Region maintains a travel forecasting model which is now being used to evaluate the rapid transit alternatives and various other infrastructure investments. WPTI provides expertise in:
2. Reconfiguring the conventional transit network to support rapid transit on the CTC
The rapid transit initiative currently being considered by the Region will have significant impacts on the provision of conventional transit service. When the rapid transit service commences, it is expected that a portion of the buses currently servicing routes along the CTC will be re-assigned to provide higher-order service (high frequency, few stops, strong image, etc.) on other routes. WPTI provides expertise in:
3. Developing route planning tools
Transit agencies review service provision - specific route alignments and service frequencies - on a recurring basis. This evaluation is typically done on an ad-hoc basis. WPTI provides expertise in:
4. Adding value to AVLS / APC data
The recent deployment of advanced transit technologies on a portion of the GRT bus fleet provides the opportunity to make significant advances in the analysis of existing operations and for planning future system investments. Working with AVL and APC data, WPTI provided expertise in:
In 2006, the City of Mississauga conducted a pilot deployment of Smart Transit Vehicle applications in order to validate potential benefits. The pilot deployment consisted of (1) on board smart transit vehicle technologies, and (2) transit signal priority measures.
A total of 30 buses were equipped with Automatic Vehicle Location System (AVLS) and Automatic Passenger Counting System (APCS); and (2) . These buses were assigned primarily to Routes 19 and 19A that service Hurontario Street between the Shoppers World terminal in Brampton and the Port Credit GO passenger rail station in Mississauga.
Transit Signal Priority (TSP) was deployed at 14 intersections along the Hurontario (Hwy 10) corridor. The deployment was arranged in two groups – one group to the north and one group to the south of Hwy 401. The TSP locations are denoted by the solid red circles on the map.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact that the AVLS and TSP had on schedule adherence of the route and the variability of bus travel times. The study made use of data collected via the on-board AVLS and APCS to determine the impacts.
The study found: