Travel Behavior

Properties of Link Travel Time Functions Under Dynamic Loads

Daganzo, Carlos F.
1993

This note examines a general form of link travel time functions considered in the dynamic traffic assignment literature and shows that it only makes some physical sense in the special case where each function denotes either a link with no spatial dimension containing a point queue, or a link with constant travel time and no queueing. Roadway segments exhibiting both phenomena must be represented by two links in series.

Truck Scheduling for Ground to Air Connectivity: Final Report

Hall, Randolph W.
Lo, Shih-Che
2002

A critical link in the overnight package business is the on-time arrival of trucks at airport terminals. Truck delays can delay the package sorting and transfer process, which can in turn delay aircraft departures from the local terminal, as well as aircraft departures from hub terminals that depend on timely aircraft arrivals. This report models the airport terminal as a queueing process with random bulk arrivals. The models have been implemented in a web-based decision support tool (Truck to Air Dispatch, TAD, available at the website ger309-pc16.usc.edu), which provides real-time...

Demand-Responsive Transit Shuttles: Who Will Use Them?

Anspacher, David
Khattak, Asad J.
Yim, Youngbin
2004

Large urban areas often have rail systems that rely on feeder buses to expand their service area. This paper explores the possibility of expanding access to existing rail transit systems through demand-responsive shuttles. The study analyzes the effect of several factors on an individual's willingness to use a door-to-station shuttle service. Using survey data collected in a case study of one urban and one suburban neighborhood (N=800) served by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, this paper uses descriptive statistics and ordered logit regression to investigate the influence of...

Incident Dispatching, Clearance and Delay

Hall, Randolph
2000

This report models response times and delays for highway incidents, according for spacing between interchanges and the time penalty for changing directions, enabling a response vehicle to reach an incident on the opposite side of the highway. A fundamental question in dispatching incident crews is whether to send the closest vehicle that is currently available or to wait for another to become available that is even closer. Waiting for a closer one is advantageous because service time is effectively reduced, adding to capacity and providing stability at higher levels of utilization. But...

Studies of Vehicle Collisions-A Documentation of the Simulation Codes: SMAC (Simulation Model of Automobile Collisions) Update 1

Chan, Ching-Yao
1999

This document describes part of the work conducted under MOU252 and MOU324, related to the studies of vehicle collisions in vehicle-following operations. This working paper is a detailed documentation of a computer program that is the core element of the simulation tools for vehicle collision dynamics. The program, SMAC (Simulation Model of Automobile Collisions), and its PC-platform version EDSMAC have been used extensively in recent work at PATH to investigate the consequences of vehicle collisions and the effects of vehicle-following parameters on collisions. A copy of the source codes...

User Perceived Benefits with Navigation Systems

Commeignes, Hervé
1991

It has often been assumed that travel time savings are only beneficial to the users of route guidance and navigation systems. In particular, absolute travel time savings have been emphasized, but there has been little interest in relative time savings between equipped and unequipped vehicles. Part 2 of this report investigates to what extent relative travel time savings decrease as the percentage of equipped vehicles increases.In order to compensate for a possible decrease in relative time savings, some other potential services that can be provided by navigation systems are identified in...

Daily Activity and Multimodal Travel Planner: Phase 1 Report

Kitamura, Ryuichi
Chen, Cynthia
1998

Travel constitutes an integral part of our daily life. Only by traveling are we able to engage in a variety of activities at different locations. Since the extension of our movement is restricted by the amount of time that is available and the speed with which we can move, it is important that our travel be efficiently organized such that the time resource can be best utilized to engage in activities in an efficient manner. One approach to achieving this is to choose less congested and faster routes. The use of in-vehicle advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) for this purpose has...

Assistive Devices and Services for the Disabled: Auditory Signage and the Accessible City for Blind or Vision-Impaired Travelers

Golledge, Reginald G.
Marston, James R.
Costanzo, C. Michael
1998

This project (MOU276) represents the first third of a longer project concerning making cities more accessible to some disabled groups by addressing some problems associated with the use of public transit. (The other two-thirds of the larger project is continued as MOU343). The disabled groups targeted in this project include the vision impaired or blind, those with low vision who have difficulty reading distant signs, those who are developmentally disabled, dyslexic, or otherwise print handicapped, those who do not read the English language, the illiterate, and small children. The blind or...

Travinfo Field Operational Test Traveler Information Center (TIC) Study (technology Evaluation Element) Implementation Plan

Miller, Mark
Hall, Randolph
1995

TravInfo is a field operation test in the San Francisco Bay Area, designed to implement a centralized traveler information center to collect, integrate, and disseminate timely and accurate traveler information. The evaluation of TravInfo consists of four elements: institutional, traveler response, network performance, and technology. This document provides the implementation plan for the Traveler Information Center (TIC), part of the technology element, and also discusses how the TIC study will be coordinated with other evaluation elements.

TravInfo Evaluation: Traveler Response Element; TravInfo 817-1717 Caller Study; Phase 2 Results

Koo, Ronald
Yim, Y. B.
2001

TravInfo was a federally funded Field Operational Test (FOT) of the Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS) in the San Francisco Bay Area. The general public can obtain most current traveler information through TravInfo's Traveler Advisory Telephone System (TATS) and privately offered information services including traffic Web sites. As part of the TravInfo FOT Evaluation, two waves of TATS callers were surveyed. The first wave of the TATS caller survey was conducted in April 1997. The second wave TATS caller survey was completed in April 1999. This paper presents the findings of the...