This research focuses on the deteriorating level of service on the Metro Manila MRT-3, and the perceptions of regular morning peak period passengers of their commuting experience and its effects on them. Using structural equation modeling, we develop a measurement model consisting of nine latent factors related to their commute − exogenous factors (commuting experience): perceived crowding, predictability, perceived air quality and perceived benefits; and endogenous factors (mediators and outcomes): perceived risk, perceived service quality, awareness during the commute, mental adaptation and commuting stress. We validate a structural model that describes the mechanism of how commuting experience affects commuting stress through some mediating factors. We find that total waiting time contributes significantly to commuting stress, while mental adaptation reduces it. Multi-group moderation is also shown to occur in relation to gender, age, income level, experience and flextime policy. These findings provide good insight for designing appropriate policies for MRT-3.

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This paper explores the impact of being poor on time use decisions and the similarities and differences between urban and rural areas in Gujarat, India. For this purpose, we develop discrete－continuous time use models for (1) mobile/immobile choices and the time allocated to travel, (2) time use for subsistence activities and (3) time use for social and leisure activities. The empirical results show that (1) while a number of similar impacts of being poor are confirmed between urban and rural areas, significant differences are also observed, possibly because of the different labor needs in urban (tertiary sector) areas versus rural (primary sector) areas, infrastructure differences (such as roads and water supply), and so on. Our results provide evidence that although the meaning of “poor” from the income/expenditure perspective may not differ between urban and rural areas, it is unignorably different from the perspective of time use.

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The reliability of transportation networks, an emerging field of research, attracts numerous researchers around the world. This paper presents a literature taxonomy of research on the reliability of road networks and an assessment of existing road network evaluation methodologies from the viewpoint of practicability, and suggests a new road network evaluation methodology for the prioritization of links to be improved in response to network closure vulnerability. The literature taxonomy includes a subdivision of reliability studies based on a broad range of relevant criteria including conceptual studies, mathematical theory, network evaluation methodologies, descriptive studies, application or case studies and ways to improve reliability. A detailed assessment of existing network evaluation methodologies is presented along with their strengths and weaknesses from a practical perspective. A network performance index is proposed for the evaluation of links. An application of the proposed methodology to the Tohoku regional road network, where numerous links were closed after the Great East Japan Earthquake, is presented.

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Paratransit systems cause traffic and environmental issues but they also serve as a personalized and flexible public transport mode in response to passenger demand, especially in Asian developing countries. Given the lack of an adequate mass transit system, the paratransit service is indispensable, while a harmonized public transport system has also recently attracted considerable interest. This paper reviews the paratransit literature and summarizes the existing fields of studies, establishes a common terminology for paratransit services, provides a more comprehensive classification scheme for the paratransit system, and discusses potential issues in relation to its sustainability. In the existing literature, we identify four key factors necessary to sustain the paratransit system such as improvements in the quality of service, integration with mass transit systems, promotion of electric paratransit modes, and government support. This information provides insights into strategic planning for increased harmonization of public transport systems in Asian developing countries.

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Motivated by the issues caused by the massive migration of young people to large cities in Japan, the generality of such issues in Asian developing countries in the future, and the lack of relevant behavioral studies, this study disentangles young adults' residential relocation choices based on a life history survey of 1,400 respondents conducted in 2010. The relocation is captured at the large, medium-sized, and small city levels. Increasing migration from small to medium-sized/large cities and complicated migration within large cities and within medium-sized cities were confirmed at the individual level. Analyses based on a discrete choice model revealed clear differences in relocation decisions across different generations of males and females, diverse influences of a variety of living environment attributes and varied influences of state dependence and future expectations in the three types of cities. In particular, rich policy implications are discussed.

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Clean energy vehicles (CEVs) such as EV or PHV should be promoted for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. However, it is important to note that social interactions affect the promotion of CEVs. Therefore, a multiagent simulation system for promoting CEVs has been developed in the present study from the perspective of not only concern for the environment but also for local interaction processes in terms of social conformity. Intention of holding CEV is described with the database of the questionnaire survey about purchasing vehicles. The social network of the artificial society is described as a small-world network model. The time series changes of the numbers of clean energy vehicles and the volume of greenhouse gas emissions are estimated by the proposed multiagent simulation. Finally, it can be concluded that the proposed multiagent simulation with local interaction is useful for promoting the planning of CEVs.

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Ever since global positioning system (GPS) modules have been attached to smart phones, much research has focused on how to obtain personal trip (PT) information from them. One of the challenges is identifying activity type (or inferring the purpose of the trip) from these continuous GPS data. This paper focuses on obtaining the type of activity using several machine learning methods and comparing the results. The comparison is implemented from the perspective of accuracy and time cost in the phases of data training and prediction. After applying four machine learning methods to the data set obtained from 30 individuals in Nagoya, Japan, a classification tree method demonstrates superiority over support vector machine (SVM), neural network (NN), and discriminant analysis methods.

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Across Japan, the rapidly aging population is becoming more visible, especially in “aging new towns”. Since mobility levels usually decline with age, having a self-contained neighborhood could be more important than before. This paper therefore explores the self-containment status of a new town for discretionary activities (shopping, volunteering, recreation, and so on), by using multiperiod (two waves) and multiday (two weeks) panel survey data collected in Koyo New Town located in Hiroshima, Japan. For this purpose, we develop a panel mixed logit model of destination choice with a focus on the impacts of social networks. We also examine whether or not the self-containment contributes to the improvement of residents' subjective well-being. The result reveals that social networks have a positive impact, not only on self-containment of discretionary activities, but also on residents' subjective well-being.

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This study utilizes the characteristics of railway reservation data and proposes a novel model based on the concept of curve similarity. The proposed model considers mainly temporal features hidden in the reservation data and establishes four modules. The similarity evaluation module is responsible for identifying similar booking curves in the historical database; the sample selection module decides which and how many samples should be selected for computing predictions; the prediction module integrates the essential information of the selected samples and generates forecasts; and the learning module searches for parameters applied throughout the whole forecasting procedure. The established model is compared with three benchmark models to verify the model validity. Empirical results show that, on average, the proposed similarity-based forecasting model can improve at least 9% of mean square errors (MSEs) over the benchmark models.

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This paper analyzes the expected impacts of improved border-crossing services on international freight transportation in Central Asia (CA). It develops a freight traffic network-assignment model based on the user equilibrium principle, and the developed model is combined with a global general equilibrium model to analyze the impacts of infrastructure development on regional economy and trade. Three cases are simulated to assess the improved border-crossing services. The results show that improvements in border-crossing service provision significantly decrease international transportation costs and boost trade flows in and out of CA in the short run. However, further growth of regional trade causes traffic congestion, which leads to an increase in international transportation costs, potentially reducing long-run trade volumes to and from CA. The analysis thus suggests that further improvement of CA transportation services is a prerequisite for the sustainable growth of regional trade.

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Supply chain management has been widely studied both academically and in practice. The logistics process is complicated and faces many risks. However, there are few studies about the performance of multinational retailing delivery service systems. Vulnerability is a new concept in risk analysis. If managers understood the most vulnerable parts of business, they could take action and allocate resources to avoid risk. This study develops an evaluation model and discusses the vulnerability of a multinational retailing delivery system via the fuzzy cognitive map and sensitivity model. From a survey, we establish an evaluation model to analyze and describe the vulnerability and resilience of the multinational retailing delivery system using various research methods. The results obtained in this study can be used to help managers formulate strategies and reduce risks proactively.

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Urban mass rapid transit-oriented development is increasing in developing Asian megacities. However, there are concerns about whether transit-oriented development attracts and allows transit users to live nearby. This study aims to examine the relationship between quality of life (QOL) and bid rent among socioeconomic groups living near rapid transit stations in Bangkok. The levels of various residential QOL indicators were classified into access, amenity, and safety elements. These indicators and their values by socioeconomic groups were examined in station and no-station areas using data from a questionnaire survey of local residents in Bangkok. The QOL indexes and bids for rent were estimated by socioeconomic group and by residential location. The results showed that low-income residents, who most frequently use mass transit, have higher QOL in station areas than in no-station areas, and high-income residents, who rely more on cars, have the highest bid rent.

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Evaluation of the interregional transportation network is necessary to examine the efficient utilization and service supply planning of public transportation, with the consideration of multiple contradictory societal demands, including the improvement of transportation convenience and reduction of environmental load. Whenever one societal demand on a network is satisfied, another should not be forgotten. This study develops a method for evaluating interregional transportation networks, which considers multimode route alternatives by setting two evaluation criteria: consumer surplus and CO₂ emissions. The proposed method can provide the tendency of one criterion when the other is optimized. For example, when maximizing consumer surplus, the optimized network was found to have many links with increased frequency of service. Moreover, the increase in CO₂ emissions can be obtained quantitatively in connection with the maximization of consumer surplus.

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In the literature on bus-based evacuation planning for short-notice evacuations, researchers have assumed either a known fixed number of evacuees or a single bus trip to the shelter on specified evacuation routes, or both of these constraints. These constraints distance their models from real-world situations, where evacuees continuously arrive at pickup points and multiple bus trips are required for the economical use of a limited number of buses. In this study, a bus-based evacuation model has been proposed to evacuate a known number of total evacuees who arrive at pickup points continuously. Evacuees are placed in shelters using multiple trips of the available buses with flexible route options. Furthermore, using the model, efforts have been made to investigate the factors affecting bus-trip assignment through a case study of flood evacuation planning for Kawajima Town in Saitama Prefecture. Two cases with warning times of 90 min and 60 min are presented. The overall bus capacity for trips to the shelter was observed to be 90−96%, which indicated the model's efficient performance when modeling multiple trips.

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This paper develops a cost-estimation model for building, operating, and maintaining a high-speed rail (HSR) system. The model introduces a macroscopic life cycle cost approach that encompasses HSR systems, the interactions between the subsystems, and the variability of the systems. For this reason, costs associated with HSR systems were categorized into operations, infrastructure, maintenance, and external costs, and their relationships and behaviors were modeled over their lifetime. A hypothetical HSR line was assumed to illustrate how the model behaves with respect to demand, speed, length, and the infrastructure and rolling stock types. The results show that articulated train sets provide a lower life cycle cost than nonarticulated sets, ceteris paribus. The results also indicate that the designs proposed by most manufacturers are less interesting from a life cycle cost perspective.

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Pedestrians' gap-acceptance behavior is an important process while crossing the road and pedestrian behavioral characteristics play a major role in gap acceptance. The existing critical gap-estimation methods (Raff's method and maximum-likelihood estimation), have focused on vehicle drivers' critical gap calculations and these methods do not reflect pedestrians' critical gap estimatiaons. The objective of this study is to compare and select the most suitable method for pedestrians' critical gap estimation at unprotected midblock crosswalks. The critical gap estimation considers the effect of pedestrians' behavioral and individual characteristics based on a video recording survey at six locations with different geometric and traffic characteristics in Mumbai, India. The results show that there are significant differences in the estimated critical gap values with and without considering pedestrians' behavioral characteristics. These results would be useful in the evaluation of unprotected midblock crosswalks and design of new crosswalk facilities.

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In this study, we focused on a short-trip rideshare system including nonmonetary rewards supported by other-regarding preferences of altruistic drivers in a village community. A methodology for simulating various mechanism designs of the short-trip rideshare system was developed. Using numerical simulation, we studied ways to improve the sustainability of the system by providing informational guidance. As a result, we showed that a higher number of rideshare pairs were sustained by messages that shaped the expectations of driver candidates about the success of ridesharing. From our numerical example, we concluded that the conveyance of informational guidance by a system operator, which induced each driver candidate to take action towards their delayed matching in place of failure, was reasonable roughly three times out of ten to promote system sustainability from the perspective of both the number of rideshare pairs and the welfare level of all participants.

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