Investigation of instantaneous effects of real-time crowding information (RTCI) availability upon urban public transport system performance – results from a simulation-based case study

Abstract

The contribution of this study would be thus to shed more light on arising changes in PT system performance due to RTCI, as revealed by our simulation works on a real-world (city) public transport network. This study comprises the next step of our research collaboration, as part of which we have already designed the path choice algorithm accounting for passengers’ access to RTCI and demonstrated the proof-of-concept on a sample network [2]. In this study, we apply this algorithm to a case study network (the inner-city PT system in Krakow, Poland) and investigate what are the within-day effects of providing RTCI to travelers. We show how output network performance and travel experience correlate with various simulation scenarios, such as RTCI penetration (response) rate and on-going PT service disruptions. Findings from our study indicate what might be the potential consequences of providing “raw”, instantaneous crowding information for current PT system performance – and importantly, whether these might be indeed beneficial or not (or even counterproductive). Importantly, we hope that observations from our study would provide useful indications for future development of real-time crowding information systems in public transport networks, especially in terms of their practical implementation, designing an appropriate RTCI evaluation algorithm (e.g. a perhaps necessary shift towards crowding prediction), and thus - means of improving the overall effectiveness and accuracy of such systems.

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