Discomfort in mass transit and its implication for scheduling and pricing

Abstract

International audienceThis paper discusses the formulation of crowding in public transport and its implications for pricing, seating capacity and optimal scheduling. An analytical model is used to describe the user equilibrium and the optimal equilibrium for different stylized conditions. For the one OD pair case with identical desired arrival time, we derive the optimal dynamic pricing and optimal share of seats. For the uniformly distributed desired arrival times case, we derive the optimal time table and the optimal pricing. Next we generalize the results to the case of a small network with several stations, stochastic choice and allocation of seats

Train commuters’ scheduling preferences: Evidence from a large-scale peak avoidance experiment

“…A recent paper by De Palma et al (2013) shows that similar results can be derived for public transport when a trade-off between schedule delays and crowding applies. The application of an optimal charging scheme will then lead to a more uniform distribution of travelers between train connections compared to the user equilibrium, however, without fully eliminating crowding.…”

Overcoming the Downs-Thomson Paradox by transit subsidy policies

“…Further analysis should consider: (1) change of departure pattern under different transit subsidy policies, (2) non-linear body congestion (Huang, 2002;de Palma et al, 2015), (3) heterogeneous commuters Xiao and Zhang, 2014;Du and Wang, 2014;Wang and Du, 2016), (4) oligopoly transit operators (Liu et al, 2011), (5) three travel modes: auto-only mode, transit-only mode, and park-and-ride mode (Liu et al, 2009;Lu et al, 2015;Wang and Du, 2013), (6) congestion interactions between autos and buses Basso et al, 2011), (7) parking fees at the destination (Qian et al, , 2012Qian and Rajagopal, 2014). …”

“…A3. During the train intervals users are observed continually arriving at the station (de Palma et al, 2015). A4.…”

“…Crowdedness both at train stations and in the carriages could bring passengers unpleasant travel experiences, and a bunch of literature has been developed to investigate its impact on people's travel, e.g., Horowitz and Sheth (1977), Huang (2000Huang ( , 2002, Tian et al ( , 2009 , Tian and Huang (2015), Lu et al (2015). Particularly, previous studies (e.g., de Palma et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2015) have shown that the crowdedness in the transit mode will lead to a tendency that transit users depart early or late to avoid the over-crowdedness or switch to driving. This paper investigates the D-T Paradox by taking into account the effect of body congestion in carriages on travelers' departure time and mode choices following the framework of Wu and Huang (2014).…”

Crowding in public transport: Who cares and why?

“…Given the low elasticity of PT supply, these policies have often coincided with less comfortable travel conditions. Theoretical models thus increase the cost of time in crowded PT -either discretely once users have to stand (Kraus, 1991), continuously with in-vehicle density (IVD) (Jara-Díaz and Gschwender, 2003), or a mix of both (de Palma et al, 2015). Signicant welfare costs of crowded public transport are also found empirically (Wardman and Whelan, 2011;Haywood and Koning, 2015).…”