Time:2018.3.25,14:00-17:00 pm
Location:New Main Build A716
Host: Prof.Tianliang Liu
Abstract:In this seminar, Prof. Liu will communicate with faculty members and Ph.D students, and discuss advanced topics onTravel Behaviour and Intelligent Mobility.
Lecture 1：
Title:Considering Overtaking and Passenger Boarding Behaviour in Bus Holding to Reduce Bus Bunching
Time:2018年3.25,10:00am
Location: New Main BuildingA716
Abstract:Bus holding control is a real-time control strategy used to reduce bus bunching. The holding control works by keeping buses adhere to a scheduled timetable and/or to a regular headway. In this talk, we consider the influence of bus driving behaviour and passenger boarding behaviour on the bus holding control and on bus bunching. We propose: (a) a distributed passenger boarding (DPB) behaviour to model the dynamic distribution of passengers, taking account of bus bunching at stops and bus capacity constraints; and (b) a first-depart-first-hold strategy for bus holding control. We show that when the combined overtaking and queue-swapping behaviour are considered, the proposed control strategies allowing for bus overtaking and DPB behaviour lead to better headway regularity, less passenger waiting time and less on-board travel time than when overtaking and DPB are not considered. We show that the benefit is even greater when travel time variability is higher and headway is smaller, suggesting that the control strategies are preferably deployed in high-frequency service.
Lecture 2:
Title:On the Effect of Real Time Information on Bus Bunching
Time: 2018.4.8,10:00am
Location:New Main BuildingA716
Abstract:Real time information allows passengers to time their arrival to bus stop so as to reduce their wait time. The aggregate result is a peaked passenger arrival distribution at bus stops, which has been shown to potentially lead to more serious bus bunching. In this paper, we examine the trade-off between these two effects of real time information. We formulate an analytical model of information content (in terms of a predicted bus departure times) and information dissemination (in terms of its update frequency and reliability). We model passenger’s perception and response to information, and derive instantaneous arrival flows based on passengers’ risk-averse disutility to wait time and a penalty for missing the last attractive bus. We show that frequent information updates and moderately fuzzy (none precise) information can be helpful in spreading the passenger arrival times and reducing bus bunching. Crisp more accurate information may not always be the best for overall system performance. The results have implications on the design of real time information dissemination strategies.
About the presenter: Dr Ronghui Liu is an Associate Professor and the Director of International Activities at the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS), University of Leeds, UK. She received her BSc from Peking University and PhD from Cambridge University. Before joining ITS Leeds, she was a Research Fellow at University College London, and while at ITS, she was seconded to head the Transport Modelling Division at TRL, UK in 2005. She served as an Associate Editor for journal IEEE Transaction on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and Member of Editorial Board of IET Journal of Intelligent Transport. Her research areas span a number of themes in the field of transport studies: in vehicle dynamics and traffic microsimulaton model developments; in traffic control theory and algorithms; in travel behaviour and Intelligent mobility; in stochastic models and reliability analysis; in public transport operations and controls; in timetabling and schedule coordination; and in train control and railway traffic management systems. She is particularly interested in the interrelationships between these themes, and methodologies for estimation, design and evaluation of their network-wide effects.
