The Second Transportation Student Research Symposium
Abstract Detail
| Name | School | Title of presentation |
| Saumya Gupta | MIT | Modeling Cooperative Lane-changing and Forced Merging Behavior |
| Travel behavior has been one of the most intriguing areas of research in transportation. There exists ample literature hypothesizing theories to model individual behavioral choices. However, little has been done to apply these theories to analyze transit path-choice of the users due to lack of sufficient data, lack of automated procedures to model transit network and difficulties in updating network models. With the advent of automated data collection each of the smart card transactions can now be easily recorded providing us with a more accurate, detailed and regular data for behavioral analysis. This thesis explores the opportunities to use this better and continuous stream of data systems [Automated Fare Collection (AFC), Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) and smart cards] and the advanced network modeling capabilities of TransCAD to analyze origin-destination travel patterns for transit users. The paper focuses on understanding the decision making process and important parameters a transit user takes into consideration while deciding between different path-choices available for his work trips. This knowledge has serious policy implications and can help a transit agency optimize its services (bus-stop spacing, re-routing, frequency changes, etc), economize costs, and enhance customer satisfaction. The paper presents an initial analysis of the frequency, time consistency, rail access distance and access bus stops/ rail stations/ route variability for the first trips of the day of smart card holders at the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) during September 2004. The paper also discusses some of the potential data issues (reliability and synchronization between AFC and AVL records) that confront us in such an analysis. Eventually it summarizes the future work that is in pipeline and will be carried out before our proper understanding of transit user’s path-choice analysis. |
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