Forecasting for short-term ridership is the foundation of metro operation and management. A prediction model is necessary to seize the weekly periodicity and nonlinearity characteristics of short-term ridership in real-time. First, this research captures the inherent periodicity of ridership via seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model (SARIMA) and proposes a support vector machine overall online model (SVMOOL) which insets the weekly periodic characteristics and trains the updated data day by day. Then, this research captures the nonlinear characteristics of the ridership via successive ridership value inputs and proposes a support vector machine partial online model (SVMPOL) which insets the nonlinear characteristics and trains the updated data of the predicted day by time interval (such as 5-min). Afterwards, to avoid the drawbacks and to take advantages of the strengths of the two individual online models, this research takes the average predicted values of two models as the final predicted values, which are called support vector machine combined online model (SVMCOL). Finally, this research uses the 5-min ridership at Zhujianglu and Sanshanjie Stations of Nanjing Metro to compare the SVMCOL model with three well-known prediction models including SARIMA, back-propagation neural network (BPNN), and SVM models. The resultant performance comparisons suggest that SARIMA is superior for the stable weekday ridership to other models. Yet the SVMCOL model is the best performer for the unstable weekend ridership and holiday ridership. It shows that for metro operation manager that gear toward timely response to real-world unstable and abnormal situations, the SVMCOL may be a better tool than the three well-known models.

Reliable and accurate estimates of metro demand can provide metro authorities with insightful information for the planning of route alignment and station locations. Many existing studies focus on metro demand from daily or annual ridership profiles, but only a few concern the variation in hourly ridership. In this paper, a geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model was used to examine the spatial and temporal variation in the relationship between hourly ridership and factors related to the built environment and topological structure. Taking Nanjing, China as a case study, an empirical study was conducted with automatic fare collection (AFC) data in three weeks. With an analysis of variance (ANOVA), it was found that the GTWR model produced the best fit for hourly ridership data compared with traditional regression models. Four built-environment factors, namely residence, commerce, scenery, and parking, and two topological-structure factors, namely degree centrality and closeness centrality, were proven to be significantly related to station-level ridership. The spatial distribution pattern and temporal nonstationarity of these six variables were further analyzed. The result of this study confirmed that the GTWR model can provide more realistic and useful information by capturing spatiotemporal heterogeneity.

Long-distance school commuting is a key aspect of students' choice of car travel. For cities lacking school buses, the metro and car are the main travel modes used by students who have a long travel distance between home and school. Therefore, encouraging students to commute using the metro can effectively reduce household car use caused by long-distance commuting to school. This paper explores metro ridership at the station level for trips to school and return trips to home in Nanjing, China by using smart card data. In particular, a global Poisson regression model and geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR) models were used to examine the effects of the built environment on students' metro ridership. The results indicate that the GWPR models provide superior performance for both trips to school and return trips to home. Spatial variations exist in the relationship between the built environment and students' metro ridership across metro stations. Built environments around metro stations, including commercial-oriented land use; the density of roads, parking lots, and bus stations; the number of docks at bikeshare stations; and the shortest distance between bike stations and metro stations have different impacts on students' metro ridership. The results have important implications for proposing relevant policies to guide students who are being driven to school to travel by metro instead.

Promoting a transition in individuals’ travel mode from car to an integrated metro and bikeshare systems is expected to effectively reduce the traffic congestion that results mainly from commute trips performed by individual automobiles. This paper focuses on the use frequency of an integrated metro–bikeshare by individuals, and presents empirical evidence from Nanjing, China. Using one-week GPS data collected from the Mobike company, the spatiotemporal characteristics of origin/destination for cyclists who would likely to use shared bike as a feeder mode to metro are examined. Three areas of travel-related spatiotemporal information were extracted including (1) the distribution of walking distances between metro stations and shared bike parking lots; (2) the distribution of cycling times between origins/destinations and metro stations; and (3) the times when metro–bikeshare users pick up/drop off shared bikes to transfer to/from a metro. Incorporating these three features into a questionnaire design, an intercept survey of possible factors on the use of the combined mode was conducted at seven functional metro stations. An ordered logistic regression model was used to examine the significant factors that influence groupings of metro passengers. Results showed that the high-, medium- and low-frequency groups of metro–bikeshare users accounted for 9.92%, 21.98% and 68.1%, respectively. Education, individual income, travel purpose, travel time on the metro, workplace location and bike lane infrastructure were found to have significant impacts on metro passengers’ use frequency of integrated metro–bikeshares. Relevant policies and interventions for metro passengers of Nanjing are proposed to encourage the integration of metro and bikeshare systems.

This is a repository copy of Investigating the effect of the spatial relationship between home, workplace and school on parental chauffeurs' daily travel mode choice.

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Encouraging car users who travel short distances to shift from car mode to active travel modes can effectively alleviate urban traffic congestion and reduce carbon emissions. However, few studies have examined the determinants of the travel mode choice of short-distance car users and ignored the nonlinear associations and interactions between variables. This paper conducts a questionnaire survey to investigate the short-distance travel mode choice of car users who travel less than 4 km in a specific city. A random forest (RF) model is applied to examine the influence of key variables on these three travel mode choices of short-distance car users and to explore the nonlinear associations and interactions of the variables. Compared with multinomial logic model, the results of RF show that significant threshold effects exist in the relationship between the car user’s travel mode choice and the selected explanatory variables, mainly travel distance, road network density, distance to CBD, and number of bus stops. In particular, 1.2 km is a critical turning point for car and active travel mode choice, before which car users prefer to travel by walking and cycling and after which there is a significant increase in the car use probability. When the road network density was between 2.5 km/km2 and 6.5 km/km2, the proportion of car users who chose cycling showed an increasing trend, while car use showed a decreasing trend. These findings can provide a solid basis for planning managers to develop policy measures to encourage environmentally sustainable travel.

With the construction of the urban rail transit (URT) network, the explosion of passenger volume is more rapid than the increased capacity of the newly built infrastructure, which results in serious passenger flow congestion (PLC). Understanding the propagation process of PLC is the key to formulate sustainable policies for reducing congestion and optimizing management. This study proposes a susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model based on the theories of epidemiological dynamics and complex network to analyze the PLC propagation. We simulate the PLC propagation under various situations, and analyze the sensitivity of PLC propagation to model parameters. Finally, the control strategies of restricting PLC propagation are introduced from two aspects, namely, supply control and demand control. The results indicate that both of the two control strategies contribute to relieving congestion pressure. The propagating scope of PLC is more sensitive when taking mild supply control, whereas, the demand control strategy shows some advantages in flexibly implementing and dealing with serious congestion. These results are of important guidance for URT agencies to understand the mechanism of PLC propagation and formulate appropriate congestion control strategies.