Abstract:

Both evaluating the service quality of a public transport system and understanding how passengers choose between modes or routes is imperative for public transport operators, providers of competing mobility services and policy makers. However, the literature does not offer consensus on how either of these tasks should be performed, which can lead to inconsistent or counter-intuitive results. This talk provides a formal treatment on how common manifestations of public transport (route sets, timetables and line plans) can be evaluated consistently, and how passengers distribute over routes. Our main insight is that evaluation and routing are two sides of the same coin: by solving an appropriate optimization model one obtains both the quality of the route set, timetable or line plan (the optimal objective value), and the distribution of the travelers over the routes (the optimal solution itself). We further demonstrate that the framework developed in this paper enables planners to (i) improve service by taking better decisions and (ii) assess to what degree of accuracy traveler behavior should be modeled on their network, potentially avoiding investing in complicated methods that may not be necessary.

General information:

This seminar will be organised in a hybrid setup. If you are interested in joining this seminar, please send an email to the secretariat of Amsterdam Business School at secbs-abs@uva.nl.