Urban mobility is experiencing an exceptional season of change, under the impulse of the disruptive innovations brought by information and communications technologies. Innovative demand-responsive transport services, allowing the intelligent matching between demand and supply and enabling travellers to request shared rides in real-time via mobile applications, are spreading in most urban areas. They are used as an alternative to public transport or as an access/egress leg to mass transit stations, i.e., acting as a feeder service. This thesis focuses on planning, design and operation, in a multimodal transport network, of innovative forms of flexible transit, a term denoting a group of shared mobility solutions able to combine a high level of shareability, typical of conventional public transport, with an adequate flexibility of route and schedule. A specific attention will be paid to the role of flexible transit in low-demand areas, where it is difficult to provide an effective and cost-efficient public transport, thus resulting in an extensive use of private vehicles. We propose different methodological approaches and tools in order to plan, design and simulate flexible transit services, exploring operating strategies, optimization algorithms and performance indicators. We are also interested in understanding which spatial and temporal demand characteristics are more favourable to flexible operations rather than fixed-route public transport in providing feeder services toward mass transit. Eventually, we will devise a layout of urban transit networks able to be adaptive, i.e., to vary its operating features and optimally deploying conventional and demand-responsive strategies according to the spatial and temporal variations of the demand. The research questions raised in this thesis are addressed focusing on the operational, tactical and strategic decision levels of transit problems and using different methodological approaches accordingly. In particular, agent-based modelling and simulation and analytical models based on continuous approximation techniques are employed. Different applications of the proposed models, based on real case studies or synthetic networks, are presented to analyse and support the design of flexible transit services and their integration with mass transit. The main findings of our work highlight that optimally employing fixed-route and flexible feeder operations can prevent the passenger accessibility to the transit system from degrading in low-demand areas and off-peak periods, thus providing a proper quality of service without burdening on operating costs.
La mobilità urbana sta attraversando un’eccezionale stagione di cambiamento, sotto l’impulso delle innovazioni introdotte dalle tecnologie dell'informazione e della comunicazione. In molte aree urbane si stanno diffondendo servizi innovativi di mobilità on-demand di tipo flessibile, che consentono l’incontro intelligente tra domanda e offerta e permettono ai viaggiatori la prenotazione di viaggi condivisi tramite applicazioni mobili in tempo reale. Tali servizi sono utilizzati come alternativa al trasporto pubblico o come soluzione per coprire il primo e ultimo miglio di un viaggio, fungendo cioè da servizio di alimentazione (feeder) delle stazioni del trasporto collettivo. Il presente lavoro di tesi si concentra sulla pianificazione, progettazione e gestione, all’interno di una rete di trasporto multimodale, di forme innovative di trasporto collettivo flessibile (flexible transit), ovvero di un insieme di soluzioni di mobilità condivisa in grado di coniugare un elevato livello di condivisibilità, tipico del trasporto pubblico convenzionale, con un’adeguata flessibilità di percorso e orari. Un'attenzione specifica sarà dedicata al ruolo del flexible transit nelle aree a domanda debole, dove è difficile fornire un trasporto pubblico efficace ed economico, implicando così un ricorso estensivo alla mobilità privata. Diversi approcci metodologici e strumenti per la pianificazione, progettazione e simulazione di servizi di trasporto flessibile verranno proposti, esplorando diverse strategie operative, algoritmi di ottimizzazione e indicatori di performance. Il nostro interesse è inoltre volto a comprendere quali caratteristiche spaziali e temporali della domanda siano più favorevoli al trasporto flessibile piuttosto che al trasporto pubblico a percorso fisso nel fornire servizi feeder verso il trasporto di massa e, infine, a come progettare una rete di trasporto collettivo adattiva, in grado cioè di variare la sua caratteristiche operative e impiegare in modo ottimizzato servizi di trasporto fisso e flessibile in base alle variazioni della domanda nello spazio e nel tempo. Le domande alla base della ricerca verranno affrontate concentrandosi sui livelli decisionali operativo, tattico e strategico dei problemi progettuali riguardanti il trasporto condiviso e impiegando di conseguenza diversi approcci metodologici, nello specifico, modelli di simulazione ad agenti e modelli analitici basati su tecniche di continuous approximation. Diverse applicazioni dei modelli proposti, basate su casi di studio reali o reti ideali, verranno presentate con l’obiettivo di analizzare e supportare la progettazione di servizi di trasporto collettivo flessibile e la loro integrazione con il trasporto pubblico di massa. I principali risultati del nostro lavoro evidenziano che l'utilizzo ottimale di trasporto fisso e flessibile è in grado di prevenire il degradarsi dell’accessibilità al sistema di trasporto pubblico, nelle aree a domanda debole e nei periodi non di punta, fornendo così un’adeguata qualità del servizio senza gravare eccessivamente sui costi operativi.
ADAPTIVE TRANSIT DESIGN AND OPERATION VIA AGENT-BASED SIMULATIONS AND ANALYTICAL MODELS / Calabro', Giovanni. - (2022 Jan 20).
ADAPTIVE TRANSIT DESIGN AND OPERATION VIA AGENT-BASED SIMULATIONS AND ANALYTICAL MODELS
CALABRO', GIOVANNI
2022-01-20
Abstract
Urban mobility is experiencing an exceptional season of change, under the impulse of the disruptive innovations brought by information and communications technologies. Innovative demand-responsive transport services, allowing the intelligent matching between demand and supply and enabling travellers to request shared rides in real-time via mobile applications, are spreading in most urban areas. They are used as an alternative to public transport or as an access/egress leg to mass transit stations, i.e., acting as a feeder service. This thesis focuses on planning, design and operation, in a multimodal transport network, of innovative forms of flexible transit, a term denoting a group of shared mobility solutions able to combine a high level of shareability, typical of conventional public transport, with an adequate flexibility of route and schedule. A specific attention will be paid to the role of flexible transit in low-demand areas, where it is difficult to provide an effective and cost-efficient public transport, thus resulting in an extensive use of private vehicles. We propose different methodological approaches and tools in order to plan, design and simulate flexible transit services, exploring operating strategies, optimization algorithms and performance indicators. We are also interested in understanding which spatial and temporal demand characteristics are more favourable to flexible operations rather than fixed-route public transport in providing feeder services toward mass transit. Eventually, we will devise a layout of urban transit networks able to be adaptive, i.e., to vary its operating features and optimally deploying conventional and demand-responsive strategies according to the spatial and temporal variations of the demand. The research questions raised in this thesis are addressed focusing on the operational, tactical and strategic decision levels of transit problems and using different methodological approaches accordingly. In particular, agent-based modelling and simulation and analytical models based on continuous approximation techniques are employed. Different applications of the proposed models, based on real case studies or synthetic networks, are presented to analyse and support the design of flexible transit services and their integration with mass transit. The main findings of our work highlight that optimally employing fixed-route and flexible feeder operations can prevent the passenger accessibility to the transit system from degrading in low-demand areas and off-peak periods, thus providing a proper quality of service without burdening on operating costs.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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