Researching Transit Public Transport Research Group

In this episode Prof Graham Currie talks to Prof Marcela Munizaga from the Universidad de Chile. Marcela is Vice Dean at the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, but also the Vice President at the Santiago Metro. Graham and Marcela initially talk about Marcela’s roles in administration, teaching and research at the University.

Marcela outlines her research background in discrete choice modelling and data science. Since 2010 there has been a relationship between the University of Chile and the public transport authority to share data from the ticketing system. The buses and metro systems in Santiago have smartcard ticketing, GPS and automatic vehicle location, which allows origin and destinations of transit users to be determined. Marcella outlines some of the data analysis that the University has done on this rich database.

Later in the episode Graham and Marcela discuss Marcela’s role as a member of the board for Metro Santiago. Marcela outlines how the board has a diverse make up, including her as a researcher and academic. Finally, Marcela discusses some of her current research activity on behavioural economics and influencing changes in travel towards more sustainable options. Marcela has also recently been working on experiments involving economic incentives, crowd sourcing service quality data such as crowding, and messaging to encourage greater transit use.

Find out more about Marcela and her work at:
Twitter - @mamuniza
ORCID profile - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0485-5124
Research Gate profile - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marcela-Munizaga
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcela-munizaga-61b0a696/

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This episode’s guest is Associate Professor Jan-Dirk Schmöcker from the Department of Urban Management at Kyoto University in Japan. Jan-Dirk has been in Japan for 15 years, 12 of them at Kyoto University. He is part of the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) group at the university and has a background in transportation planning and assignment modelling.

In this episode Jan-Dirk explains his research about hyperpaths on the transit. These relate to the range of options available to transit riders, representing a set of paths through the network. Together with understand a strategy (such as boarding the first arriving bus), these hyperpaths can be used to better understand how passengers make choices. Jan-Dirk also describes some of his research into bus bunching and the choices passengers might have between boarding an overcrowded first bus or a second, relatively empty bus.

Graham and Jan-Dirk also discuss Jan-Dirk’s research into the benefits of unreliability. This relates to the way that users might learn other parts of the network when there are service disruptions, crowding or other problems that force them to seek an alternate route. This may result in users discovering better options to their usual route. In unreliable transportation systems travellers also arguably experience their environment more.

Towards the end of the episode Jan-Dirk describes some of his work on transit fares. This has included looking at trends in fare structures, with some cities moving towards flat-fare pricing (which is easier to understand) while others are moving towards pricing that better reflects the marginal cost each passenger imposes on the system. Jan-Dirk discusses how much of the focus has been on the spatial dimension: whether to have a flat-fare, or a zonal or other distance-based pricing structure. In contrast, there has been less attention paid to other aspects of fare policy-making, such as the impacts of discounts for frequent users and daily/weekly/monthly/yearly passes, special pricing for particular user groups, and the impact of transit operators obtaining significant amounts of their revenue from non-transit businesses.

Finally, Jan-Dirk discusses some of his work using Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) data to understand passengers’ origins and destinations. He also discusses his current research into using big data and crowd sourcing to better understand travel and activity patterns. Among others he is using Google Popular Times data and Twitter data to understand how tourists are using public transport in Kyoto.

Find out more about Jan-Dirk and his work at:
His biography on the Kyoto University website at: https://trans.kuciv.kyoto-u.ac.jp/its/Schmoecker.html
His publications at:
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=DIFXh60AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Dirk-Schmoecker
World Transit Research: https://www.worldtransitresearch.info/do/search/?q=Jan-Dirk%20Schm%C3%B6cker%20&start=0&context=1060035&facet=
and a recent project on using crowdsourced data at: https://concert-japan-daruma.github.io/

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In this episode Professor Graham Currie meets with Professor Stefan Voß, who is Director of the Institute of Information Systems and (until the end of 2022 was) the Dean of the Hamburg Business School at the University of Hamburg. Stefan has a background in mathematics, computer science and related fields. He and Graham discuss this and the fields of operations and information management, including the application of artificial intelligence and heuristics to public transport and other scheduling problems. Stefan outlines research he has done on timetable synchronisation (sometimes referred to as timetable coordination). Much of this has been in partnership with industry, and Stefan and Graham briefly discuss some of the challenges of publishing research within the constraints of commercial confidentiality.

Robustness in transport systems is another of Stefan’s other areas of research interest. He outlines work he has done on the Hamburg public transport system looking at predicting service delays and developing a mathematical formulation of robustness.

Stefan was also an co-author on A Scientometric Analysis of Public Transport Research, published in the Journal of Public Transportation (DOI: http://doi.org/10.5038/2375-0901.18.2.8, available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jpt/vol18/iss2/8). This paper undertook a broad review of the Public Transport research, looking at key authors, journals and other aspects of the field. Graham and Stefan discuss the use of Impact Factors in assessing the importance of research outputs, and Stefan highlights how the scientometric analysis findings might suggest that the current emphasis on Impact Factor may not provide a full picture of which publications are particularly important to the field.

Moving on to discuss upcoming research, Stefan talks about his current work using digital twins to better understand power usage at container terminals. Graham and Stefan briefly discuss how similar issues of power supply may be turning out to be a problem for public transport depots that need to provide electric bus recharging. Stefan also talks about how digital twins might support research into, and the management of, public transport networks.

Find out more about Stefan and his work at:
his profile page at the University of Hamburg at https://www.bwl.uni-hamburg.de/en/iwi/team/mitglieder/stefan-voss.html
his publications at World Transit Research at https://www.worldtransitresearch.info/do/search/?q=author%3A(%20stefan%20vo%C3%9F%20)&start=0&context=1060035&sort=score&facet=
his ORCID page at https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1296-4221


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Researching Transit comes to you again from the Conference on Advanced Systems in Public Transport (CASPT2022) in Tel Aviv, Israel. In this episode Professor Graham Currie met with another of the conference organisers, Professor Avi Ceder. Avi is the Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and at the Transportation Research Institute, Technion Israel Institute of Technology. He is also a former Zhi-xing Professor at Beijing Jiaotong University (BJTU) and Honorary Professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Avi is an expert on public transport scheduling, and the author of Public Transit Planning and Operation: Theory, Modeling and Practice. Graham and Avi first talk about Avi’s background and experience as a bus driver, PhD student, academic and now Emeritus Professor. Avi got into transit scheduling having taught operations management subjects, and as a consultant to an Israeli bus company prior to development of computerised scheduling tools. Graham and Avi discuss the development of, and research into, transit scheduling theory and tools.

They then move onto discuss a recent paper Avi authored on Syncing sustainable urban mobility with public transit policy trends based on global data analysis in Nature Scientific Reports (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93741-4). Avi outlines four issues with road traffic discussed in this paper: crashes, congestion, pollution and space used by parked vehicles. He also discusses the paper’s study of 17 cities, and exploration of what the shift to autonomous vehicles might mean for transportation, transit and the number of vehicles that will be needed in the future.

Graham and Avi discuss some of the opportunities that are presented by COVID-19, autonomous vehicles and other shifts. Avi’s Nature paper discusses how autonomous vehicles, if publicly owned / shared, may allow cities to reallocate road and parking space to other uses. He and Graham discuss how a future with widespread private ownership and use might, instead, result in more vehicles, lower occupancy and increase congestion.

Later in the episode Avi discusses his work on deficit functions that can be use in the optimisation of vehicle numbers and minimisation of waiting time. Avi also outlines the concept of Just Noticeable Difference (JND), being the threshold at which people might distinguish between different costs, waiting times or other aspects of alternative transport options. This might be used as an input to mobile phone-based trip planning software, to personalise route recommendations to individual preferences in real-time.

Find out more about Avi and his work at his:
Avi’s webpage at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology at https://ceder.net.technion.ac.il/
Avi’s webpage as an International Associate of Monash’s Public Transport Research Group (PTRG) at http://publictransportresearchgroup.info/our-team/international-associates/avi-ceder-2/
Avi’s publications at: World Transit Research at https://www.worldtransitresearch.info/do/search/?q=author_lname%3A%22Ceder%22&start=0&context=1060035&facet=#query-results

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Our guest for this episode of Researching Transit is Professor Marcus Enoch of Loughborough University. Graham and Marcus discuss Marcus’ somewhat sudden commencement of his PhD studies at the Open University, with a research topic agreed to in the taxi from the railway station! They also discuss the 18 months of journalism Marcus undertook for Local Transport Today.

Marcus’ research has included studying transport in Mauritius and Cuba. This work, with James Warren, approaches island transport almost as laboratory for new ideas given that it is easier to understand what is going on when systems are constrained by geography. Marcus also briefly discusses his work about transport in a cultural island, having published a paper in the Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies about Transport Practices in Amish Communities (https://doi.org/10.18061/1811/59689).

More recently Marcus has been publishing about transport convergence, which links somewhat to the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept. Newer modes such as ride share, Demand Responsive Transport (DRT), micro-mobility modes such as electric scooters and bike share, and car share may be leading towards the convergence of transport services by bridging the gaps between the more established modes. Marcus briefly discusses how this relates to his work in New Zealand on the Public Transport 2045 strategy, which included interviewing experts from across the world and developing four scenarios for how public transport will evolve.

Marcus also tells us about some of his recent projects on predicting station passenger demand using machine learning, and an internet of things systems for seat sensors on buses: the Bus Seating Information Technology (BusSIT) project. BusSIT was reported in a recent paper in the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Intelligent Transport Systems journal (https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-its.2019.0529).

Marcus has also done research on travel plans for the European Commission and Transport for London. Travel plans relate to how employers, especially large organisations such asuniversities, have a much larger influence on how people travel to and from their site than do transport agencies. Marcus has written a book on sustainable transport and travel plans (Enoch, M. (2016). Sustainable Transport, Mobility Management and Travel Plans. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis) which has helped to move travel plans away from being something that is done solely because of a local planning requirement. They also discuss Marcus’ review of 100+ Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) schemes (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2013.11.004).

Finally, Marcus and Graham discuss Marcus’ future research, including a project about booking a `slot’ prior to starting a journey by car. Marcus is also looking at how falls on hard surface can lead to injury, and the economic feasibility of rolling out soft surfaces, such as might be found in a children’s playground, to reduce pedestrian trauma. Also in the works is a series of eight science fiction novels on the future of transport, looking at different potential outcomes and technologies.

Find out more about Marcus and his work at:
His biography on the Loughborough University website https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/abce/staff/marcus-enoch/
https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3D%22Enoch%2C+Marcus%22&itemType=book&itemSubType=book-printbook%2Cbook-digital
New Zealand’s Public Transport 2045 at https://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Paper/Public-Transport-2045.pdf
His publications at:
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6bIPO3oAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra
World Transit Research https://www.worldtransitresearch.info/do/search/?q=author_lname%3A%22Enoch%22%20AND%20author_fname%3A%22Marcus%22&start=0&context=1060035&sort=date_desc&facet=

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Researching Transit comes to you this episode from the Conference on Advanced Systems in Public Transport (CASPT2022) in Tel Aviv, Israel. Here Professor Graham Currie met with one of the conference organisers, Dr Yuval Hadas from Bar-Ilan University, which is in Ramat Gan, a city near Tel Aviv.

Yuval is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and the Head of Supply Chain Management and Logistics Graduate programs. Graham and Yuval initially discuss the Department’s focus on city logistics and supply-chain management. However, freight movement has many similarities to people movement, and Yuval’s research and work provide connections to transit, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and transport management.

Yuval describes how transfers are an inevitable, yet difficult, part of public transport. He and Graham discuss how networks can be designed to minimise transfers (as in Paul Mees’ ‘Squaresville’ model), but that transfer-free, point-to-point services for all riders are not practical. Yuval then outlines his research about improving transfers for passengers using real-time service changes, such as skipping stops, to optimise outcomes. He and Graham briefly discuss some of the challenges with implementation, with real-time changes to services unlikely to be popular with those passengers waiting at a skipped stop regardless of overall benefits. However, Yuval highlights that real-time fare pricing adjustments might be one way to offset impacts on different users. This connects to Yuval’s other research on dynamic fare pricing for transit services.

Graham and Yuval discuss how variable pricing is already well established in transport systems. Examples include congestion-based road pricing systems, some toll lanes, and off-peak ticketing for some transit services. However, dynamic pricing in transit is, as yet, only informal and non-financial, with passengers often incentivised to wait for the next bus or travel outside of peak times to avoid crowding. Yuval discusses his research examining how this might be taken to the next level, with passengers offered a discount to avoid boarding an overcrowded vehicle. This might allow space to be left available for those further down the line, those with special needs, or those who are not as able or willing to travel later.

Yuval also outlines his research into bus lanes and similar priority measures for on-road transit services. This focuses on evaluating priority across an entire network, not just on a segment-by-segment basis. The research seeks to develop a set of solutions that have similar overall (technical) benefits, rather than just a single `optimal’ solution, so that decision-makers can take non-technical issues into consideration when selecting a desired option.

Chewing gum might seem an odd topic for transit, but Yuval has been involved research about this, caffeine and bus driver vigilance. He and Graham discuss a case-control study that found caffeinated chewing-gum improved driver performance in less than ten minutes, whereas an ordinary cup of coffee did not (see https://doi.org/10.3141/2602-04). Finally, Yuval briefly tells Graham about some of his current research looking into electric vehicles, batteries and power supply.

Find out more about Yuval and his work at his:
• Biography at the Bar-Ilan University website https://management.biu.ac.il/en/yuvalhadas
• LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuval-hadas-841b315/
• Publications at:
• Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?hl=en&user=64jXi9wAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
• ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3767-846X
• World Transit Research at https://www.worldtransitresearch.info/do/search/?q=author_lname%3A%22Hadas%22%20author_fname%3A%22Yuval%22&start=0&context=1060035&facet=

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