Railway station choice modelling: a review of methods and evidence

Abstract

Since the first railway station choice studies of the 1970s, a substantial body of research on the topic has been completed, primarily in North America, the UK and the Netherlands. With many countries seeing sustained growth in rail passenger numbers, which is forecast to continue, station choice models have an important role to play in assessing proposals for new stations or service changes. This paper reviews the modelling approaches adopted, the factors found to influence station choice, and the application of models to real-world demand forecasting scenarios. A consensus has formed around using the closed-form multinomial logit and nested logit models, with limited use of more advanced simulation-based models, and the direction effects of a range of factors have been consistently reported. However, there are questions over the validity of applying non-spatial discrete choice models to a context where spatial correlation will be present, in particular with regard to the models' ability to adequately represent the abstraction behaviours resulting from competition between stations. Furthermore, there has been limited progress towards developing a methodology to integrate a station choice element into the aggregate models typically used to forecast passenger demand for new stations.

Understanding the relation between travel duration and station choice behavior of cyclists in the metropolitan region of Amsterdam

“…However, the impact of this dummy variable is lower compared to the other cross-variable. In the literature review of Young and Blainey (2018b) it was found that the amount of transfers required for an individual is an important indicator for station choice parking. Our results show that the amount of transfers is not significant for any of the alternatives at a 90% confidence level.…”

“…In this research we attempt to explain how travel duration impacts station choice. Additionally, although Young and Blainey (2018b) mentions the use of socio-economic characteristics, the literature on railway service and access factors is way more extensive compared to the literature on socio-economic characteristic. Therefore, in this paper we attempt to further investigate the effects of socio-economic characteristics in station choice.…”

Understanding the Role of Cycling to Urban Transit Stations through a Simultaneous Access Mode and Station Choice Model

“…Previous studies on modeling choice of access station have typically applied choice set identification methods that fall under one of the following three categories ( 5 ): (i) consider the n closest stations to the origin as the choice set; (ii) fix a catchment radius for stations and thereby assign station alternatives to the choice set of a given origin; or (iii) consider the n stations most frequently selected by travelers from a given origin as that origin’s choice set. The first two categories are both essentially conjunctive decision rules that rely exclusively on access distance as the attribute forming the consideration set; that is, if the distance threshold criterion is met, the alternative is included in the consideration set.…”

“…Increasingly studies investigate these questions, where several classes of factors influencing the access mode, station choice, or both, are identified ( 4 , 5 ). Individual variables, such as age, gender, and income have been found to influence the access mode choice.…”

Development of railway station choice models to improve the representation of station catchments in rail demand models

“…Unlike many previous studies, the research described in this paper has an applied focus, seeking to develop station choice models that can be incorporated into the trip end or flow models that are used to assess proposals for new railway stations or substantial service changes. For a comprehensive review of prior research in this area, see Young and Blainey (2017).…”