MAITE

The Second Transportation Student Research Symposium

Abstract Detail

Name	School	Title of presentation
Zhan Guo	MIT	Modeling the Effects of Transit System Transfers on Travel Behavior: A Commuter Rail and Subway Case Study in Downtown Boston

Transit system in large metropolitan areas usually included several different modes such as subway, light rail, bus, and regional rail. Many transit customers transfer between modes to finish a journey. Transfers can be an important influence on customer satisfaction and on whether many customers will find transit service an acceptable option. This paper evaluates the transfer behavior between two major transit modes: commuter rail and subway in downtown Boston. It finds that the transfer penalty between modes is greater than that within a single mode. Monthly pass users have a lower transfer penalty compared to ticket or token users. Although the transfer experience is very different across stations, the variation of the transfer penalty among individuals at the same station is quite narrow despite of various distribution assumptions: Normal, Lognormal, Triangular, and Johnson’s SB distribution.

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Last updated January 9, 2009