Characterizing co-modality in urban transit systems from a passengers’ perspective
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2020
Subject Area
place - urban, operations - performance, technology - intelligent transport systems, technology - passenger information, land use - urban density, ridership - behaviour
Keywords
Public transit, Co-modality, Performance, Travel time, GTFS, API
Abstract
Co-modality is a concept based on a unified network system which will ensure the effective and sustainable utilization of all transportation modes. However, the application of co-modality as a measure of evaluating public transit system performance is recent and has been predominantly used in freight transport systems. This study proposes a novel approach by using co-modality as a key performance indicator to characterize public transit systems for passengers. This paper examines a new data set to evaluate transit systems from a user perspective. The data is gathered from an Application Programming Interface (API) which pulls from the real-time General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS). Data was collected over 24 h to explore 4320 transit trips and 69,120 attributes for a single origin–destination pair. Co-modality is used to understand how dozens of transit routes and schedules will best serve transit users. A detailed analysis of trips involving multiple transit segments is conducted to understand how varying headways influence the overall trip travel time. The main conclusion for this paper is that a user perspective is necessary to understand co-modality across public transit systems. Some of the metrics identified in this paper, such as percent of trip spent walking, will be useful in assessing last-mile portions of travel across multiple trips. A better understanding of transit service to travelers by the transit system as a whole will help to improve transportation in dense urban areas.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by SpringerLink, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Islam, N., Talukder, M.A.S., Hainen, A., & Atkison, T. (2020). Characterizing co-modality in urban transit systems from a passengers’ perspective. Public Transport, Vol. 12, pp. 405–430.
