Estimation of the Network Capacity for Multimodal Urban Systems (original) (raw)

Anatomy and efficiency of urban multimodal mobility

Scientific reports, 2014

The growth of transportation networks and their increasing interconnections, although positive, has the downside effect of an increasing complexity which make them difficult to use, to assess, and limits their efficiency. On average in the UK, 23% of travel time is lost in connections for trips with more than one mode, and the lack of synchronization decreases very slowly with population size. This lack of synchronization between modes induces differences between the theoretical quickest trip and the 'time-respecting' path, which takes into account waiting times at interconnection nodes. We analyse here the statistics of these paths on the multilayer, temporal network of the entire, multimodal british public transportation system. We propose a statistical decomposition - the 'anatomy' - of trips in urban areas, in terms of riding, waiting and walking times, and which shows how the temporal structure of trips varies with distance and allows us to compare different cit...

Exploring Effect of Variability of Urban System Characteristics in Network Capacity

2011

Mobility and transportation are two of the leading indicators of economic growth of a society. As cities around the world grow rapidly and more people and modes compete for limited urban space to travel, there is an increasing need to understand how this space is used for transportation and how it can be managed to improve accessibility for everyone. In a recent paper, Daganzo and Geroliminis (2008) explored the connection between network structure and a network’s Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) for urban neighborhoods with cars con-trolled by traffic signals and derived an analytical theory for the MFD using Variational Theory. Information needed to estimate this network MFD’s are average network (total length of roads in lane-km, number of lanes, length of links), control (signal offsets, green phase and cycle time) and traffic (free flow speed, congested wave speed, jam density, capacity) characteristics. However in previous studies, Variational Theory has been applied only...

Understanding traffic capacity of urban networks

Scientific Reports, 2019

Traffic in an urban network becomes congested once there is a critical number of vehicles in the network. To improve traffic operations, develop new congestion mitigation strategies, and reduce negative traffic externalities, understanding the basic laws governing the network’s critical number of vehicles and the network’s traffic capacity is necessary. However, until now, a holistic understanding of this critical point and an empirical quantification of its driving factors has been missing. Here we show with billions of vehicle observations from more than 40 cities, how road and bus network topology explains around 90% of the empirically observed critical point variation, making it therefore predictable. Importantly, we find a sublinear relationship between network size and critical accumulation emphasizing decreasing marginal returns of infrastructure investment. As transportation networks are the lifeline of our cities, our findings have profound implications on how to build and ...

Exploring the Effect of Variability of Urban System Characteristics in the Network Capacity

Transportation Research Board 90th Annual MeetingTransportation Research Board, 2011

Mobility and transportation are two of the leading indicators of economic growth of a society. As cities around the world grow rapidly and more people and modes compete for limited urban space to travel, there is an increasing need to understand how this space is used for transportation and how it can be managed to improve accessibility for everyone. In a recent paper, Daganzo and Geroliminis (1) explored the connection between network structure and a network's MFD for urban neighborhoods with cars controlled by traffic signals and derived an analytical theory for the MFD using Variational Theory. Information needed to estimate this network MFD's are average network (total length of roads in lane-km, number of lanes, length of links), control (signal offsets, green phase and cycle time) and traffic (free flow speed, congested wave speed, jam density, capacity) characteristics. However in previous studies, Variational Theory has been applied only in cities with deterministic values of the above variables for the whole network and by ignoring the effect of turns. In our study we are aiming to generate an MFD for streets with variable link lengths and signal characteristics and understand the effect of variability for different cities and signal structures. Furthermore, this variability gives the opportunity to mimic the effect of turning movements and heterogeneity in drivers' behavior. This will be a key issue in planning the signal regimes such a way that maximizes the network capacity and/or the density range of the capacity.

Simulation-Based Design of Urban Bi-modal Transport Systems

Frontiers in Future Transportation, 2020

The three-dimensional passenger macroscopic fundamental diagram (pMFD) describes the relation of the network accumulation of public transport and private vehicles, and the passenger production. It allows for modeling the multi-modal traffic dynamics in urban networks and deriving innovative performance indicators. This paper integrates this concept into a multi-modal transport system design framework formulated as a simulation-based optimization problem. In doing so, we consider the competition for limited road space and the operational characteristics, such as congestion occurrences, at the strategic design level. We evaluate the proposed framework in a case study for the Sioux Falls network. Thereby, we deliver a proof of concept, and show that the proposed methodology indeed designs a transport system which benefits the overall system's performance. This paper further advances the integration of sequential model-based optimization techniques, macroscopic traffic flow concepts...

How Many Cars in the City Are Too Many? Towards Finding the Optimal Modal Split for a Multi-Modal Urban Road Network

Frontiers in Future Transportation, 2021

Interactions among different modes or vehicle classes in urban road networks affect the network performance in different and complex ways. Thus, an answer to the question of “how many cars are too many for a city?” is not trivial. However, multi-modal macroscopic fundamental diagrams (MFD) offer a novel opportunity to answer this question. So far, no methodology exists to estimate multi-modal MFDs resulting from arbitrary multi-modal interactions. In this paper, we propose a methodology to capture additional delays in the shape of the MFD and derive an approach for estimating multi-modal MFDs thereof. The influence on the MFD shape is established using the two-fluid theory of urban traffic by defining pairwise copula functions between travel times of each mode. In contrast to many existing approaches, the presented approach retains individual mode's speed information. We show the applicability of the approach with a tri-modal case of bicycles, buses, and cars with empirical data...

From Modeling to Optimizing Sustainable Public Transport: A New Methodological Approach

Sustainability

This paper explores the potential for connected public-transport (PT) mobility as an alternative to motorized private transport (MPT) in medium-sized cities. Despite the high demand for MPT, it occupies a lot of space and contributes to conflicts and reduced livability. The more sustainable mobility solution of PT, however, is often considered slow, unreliable, and uncomfortable. To overcome these issues, the authors investigate the state-of-the-art research of connected PT mobility, including ways to quantify mobility behavior, micro- and macro-simulations of traffic flow, and the potential of not-yet-established modes of transport such as Mobility on Demand (MoD) for last-mile transportation. MoD could reduce the drawbacks of PT and provide sufficient and sustainable mobility to all citizens, including those in rural areas. To achieve this, precise information on individual traffic flows is needed, including origin–destination (OD) relations of all trips per day. The paper outline...

Analysing the configuration of integrated multi-modal urban networks

This article proposes urban network models as instruments to assess the sustainable mobility performance of urban areas, thanks to their capacity to describe the detail of the local environment in the context of a wider city-region. Drawing from the features of existing street network models that offer disaggregate, scalable and relational analysis of the spatial configuration of urban areas, it presents a multi-modal urban network model that describes the urban environment using three systems – private transport (car, bicycle and pedestrian), public transport and land use. This model can be used to analyse the proximity, density and accessibility characteristics of urban areas for the individual or integrated network modes and land use activities, using a range of distance types and other analysis parameters. An implementation of the multi-modal urban network model is created for the Randstad city- region and is analysed to test its features and possibilities. In particular, the analysis of the configuration of the urban network according to different distance parameters, and the analysis of the integrated modes and land use, give indications to the successful use of integrated multi-modal urban networks to build a rich sustainable mobility profile of urban areas.

Modeling the congestion cost and vehicle emission within multimodal traffic network under the condition of equilibrium

Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering, 2012

Traditional system optimization models for traffic network focus on the treatment of congestion, which usually have an objective of minimizing the total travel time. However, the negative externality of congestion, such as environment pollution, is neglected in most cases. Such models fall short in taking Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and its impact on climate change into consideration. In this paper, a social-cost based system optimization (SO) model is proposed for the multimodal traffic network considering both traffic congestion and corresponding vehicle emission. Firstly, a variation inequality model is developed to formulate the equilibrium problem for such network based on the analysis of travelers' combined choices. Secondly, the computational models of traffic congestion and vehicle emission of whole multimodal network are proposed based on the equilibrium link-flows and the corresponding travel times. A bi-level programming model, in which the social-cost based SO model is treated as the upper-level problem and the combined equilibrium model is processed as the lower-level problem, is then presented with its solution algorithm. Finally, the proposed models are illustrated through a simple numerical example. The study results confirm and support the idea of giving the priority to the development of urban public transport, which is an effective way to achieve a sustainable urban transportation.