TTE 4274:

Transportation Engineering Systems

Instructor: Sabreena Anowar, PhD

Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering
University of Central Florida

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Today’s Outline
• Mass transit/Public passenger transportation

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Topics Covered So Far
• Right of Way (ROW) is the travel way or strip of
land on which the transit vehicle operates
• Most important element – it influences investment
cost and performance
• Based on degree of separation, it is of 3 types
• Category C: surface streets with mixed traffic
• bus, street car, tram
• Category B: physically separated – with grade crossings
• light rail
• Category A: grade separated (tunnel/elevated)/exclusive
• metro/subway

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Topics Covered So Far
• Mechanical features of vehicles and travel ways
• Four most important features are –
• Vertical contact between vehicle and surface
Support • Rubber tire on concrete
• Steel wheel on steel rail
• Means of lateral vehicle guidance
Guidance • Steered by driver
• Guided by tracks
• Type of propulsion unit
• ICE - conventional (gasoline/diesel)
Propulsion
• Electric motor
• Others – Hybrid, CNG, Ethanol, Biodiesel
• Means of regulating the travel of vehicles in the system
Control • Manual
• Automated
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Topics Covered So Far
• Service
• There are many different type of services

• Short haul
Route and trip
• City wide - Lynx
type
• Region

• Local
Stopping
• Accelerated/skip-stop
schedule
• Express

• Regular/all day service

Time of
• Commuter transit/peak hour service
operation
• Special/irregular service

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Classes of Transit Modes
• Public transportation modes –
1. Street transit (surface transit) modes
2. Medium-capacity modes:
• Semi-rapid transit
3. High performance modes:
• Rapid transit

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Street/Surface Transit
• The most common type of transit everyday
• Operating on street – ROW C

Consists of buses operating along fixed lines on

Regular bus fixed schedules with relatively frequent/dense
stops along the line

Typically consists of buses operating on long lines

with widely spaced stops – works well in places
Express bus where people commute into a city from another
small city or suburb

Same vehicles as buses but instead of a diesel

engine, they are propelled by an electric motor
Trolley bus and obtain power from two overhead wires
along their lines

Street cars or Electrically powered rail transit vehicles operating

tramways as one- or three-car transit mostly on streets
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 Semirapid Transit
• Higher performance than the street transit mode
• Utilizes mostly ROW category B
 Most ROW is B
 Clearly designated stops/stations with passenger
Bus amenities spaced 300-500 m apart
rapid  Regular/articulated buses with multiple doors
transit  Service offered with regular headways throughout
(BRT) the day
 Movement of buses along line, well-organized
passenger information

Light  Most of the ROW is B/A

 Track crossing of street are regulated by signals
rail
 Stops/stations are separated from the street roadway
transit  Average spacing between stops/stations : 300-600m
(LRT)  Vehicles are articulated and have multiple doors

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Rapid Transit
• Utilizes ROW category A
• System with high capacity, reliability, safety and
other performance elements
Light rail rapid Light rail vehicles operating on ROW category A
transit (LRRT) only

Rubber-tired Moderately large four-axle vehicles supported and

rapid transit guided by rubber tires, running on steel or concrete
(RTRT) surfaces

Fundamentally different technology of vehicles and

guideway.
Monorail Includes vehicles supported or suspended from the
guideway.

Typically consists of large four-axle electrically

Rail rapid transit
powered rail vehicles operate in trains of up to 10
(RRT) or Metro cars with full signal control
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Other Modes/Special Transit Modes
• Ferry
• Auto, passenger

• Cable car
• Unique to San Francisco

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Other Modes/Special Transit Modes
• Automated Guideway
Transit (AGT)
• Driverless vehicles for
institutional circulation

• Aerial ropeways
• Carrier suspended from
aerial cable

• Funiculars or Inclines
• Suited for hilly areas
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Basic Operating Elements
• Transit line
• The infrastructure and service provided on a fixed
alignment by buses or trains operating on a predetermined
schedule
• Transit network
• A set of transit lines that connect with or cross each other

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Basic Operating Elements
• Line length
• One-way distance of a line along its alignment
• Network length
• Total length of all alignments
• Total line length
• Sum of all line lengths, whether they overlap or not

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Basic Operating Elements

1 km 1 km 1 km

1 km

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Basic Operating Elements
• Transit stop
• Location along a transit line to pick up and drop off
passengers
• Transit station
• Special structure for boarding/alighting, waiting and
transfer

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Basic Operating Elements
• Vehicles: 𝑛
• Transit unit: 𝑇U – a set of n cars that travel coupled
together. A TU may be a single vehicle (n=1) or a
train or articulated bus with several vehicles (n>1)

Vehicles
TU

Vehicles
TU

Vehicles
TU
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Basic Operating Elements
• Transit fleet
• Refers to all bus and rail vehicles in the system
• Fleet size:
• Total number of transit vehicles required to operate a line
or an entire system
𝑁𝑓 = 𝑁 + 𝑁𝑟 + 𝑁𝑚
• 𝑁 = vehicles needed for regular service
• 𝑁𝑟 = vehicles needed for reserve
• 𝑁𝑚 = vehicles on maintenance or reserve

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Basic Operating Elements

LYNX Fleet Size

More thank 300 air-conditioned coaches

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Basic Operating Elements
• Headway: ℎ
• the time interval between the moments two successive
TUs pass a fixed point on a transit line in the same
direction.
• Should try to provide equal headways

ℎ = 30 min

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Basic Operating Elements
• Frequency of service: 𝑓
• the number of TUs passing a point on a transit line in one
direction during one hour (or some other time interval).
60
𝑓=
ℎ

ℎ = 30 min; 𝑓 = 2 TU/h

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Basic Operating Elements - Headway
• Transit operator cost and passenger cost depend on
chosen headway.
• Passenger cost, in the case when vehicles arrive
regularly, has linear increase with headway.
• The greater the headway, the greater the
passenger waiting time and passenger cost.
• Greater headway means for transit operator smaller
number of departures and lower costs

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Basic Operating Elements - Headway
Dependence of the transit operator cost and passenger cost of headway

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Basic Operating Elements - Headway
• Let us assume that
• Z is the total cost per hour;
• c is the transit operator cost per bus hour;
• ν is the value of passenger waiting time per hour;
• r is the total number of passengers on line per hour
(ridership per hour);
• N is the number of vehicles assigned to the bus line; and
• h is the headway.

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Basic Operating Elements - Headway
• The transit operator cost per hour is equal to
𝑁×𝑐
• We assume regular vehicle arrivals. In this case, the
average waiting time per passenger at the station w is
equal to the one half of the vehicle headway h;
ℎ
𝑤=
2
• The waiting cost of all passengers is equal to
ℎ
υ ×𝑟×
2

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Basic Operating Elements - Headway
• The total cost is equal:
ℎ
𝑍 =𝑁×𝑐+υ ×𝑟×
2
𝑇
• Since, 𝑁 = ;
ℎ
𝑇 ℎ
𝑍 = ×𝑐+υ ×𝑟×
ℎ 2
• The optimal headway is found by setting the derivative of Z
with respect to h equal to zero:
𝑑𝑍 𝑇 υ ×𝑟
= −𝑐 × 2 + =0
𝑑ℎ ℎ 2

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Basic Operating Elements - Headway
• The optimal headway equals:
2×𝑐×𝑇
ℎ=
υ ×𝑟
• This is referred to as the “square root formula” for
optimizing headway and service frequency
• Minimal headway values in real-life are usually between
2 and 3 min.
• Maximal headways values are between 15 and 30 min.
• Outside of peak periods, on some transit lines, maximum
headway values reach 60 min.

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Basic Operating Elements - Headway
• The service frequency f is the inverse of the
headway:
1 υ ×𝑟
𝑓= =
ℎ 2×𝑐×𝑇

Service frequency
dependence of the
total number of
passengers on line
per hour.

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Basic Operating Elements - Headway
• Example:

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Passenger travel times
• Origin destination travel time:
𝑇𝑂𝐷 = 𝑡𝑎 + 𝑡𝑤 + 𝑡𝑜 + 𝑡𝑓

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Transit Ridership
• To determine impact on ridership and revenues of
any change in service policy.
• Need to know how demand estimates will be used.
• The value of shrinkage ratio is one way of measuring
demand elasticity of transit ridership with respect to
fare.
• Shrinkage ratio is the percentage change in ridership
for each percent change in transit fare.

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Fare Elasticity
• Shrinkage ratio elasticity for fare elasticity is
𝑄1 − 𝑄0
%Δ𝑄 𝑄0
𝜀𝑠ℎ𝑟 = =
%Δ𝑃 𝑃1 − 𝑃0
𝑃0

 𝑄1 = After ridership
 𝑄0 = Before ridership
 𝑃1 = After fare
 𝑃0 = Before fare

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Variation in Fare Elasticity
High Fare Elasticity Low Fare Elasticity

(Ridership More Sensitive) (Ridership Less Sensitive)

• Small urban areas • Large dense cities

• Sparse transit service • Rapid transit
• Low cost of driving • High cost of driving
• Low transit mode choice • High transit mode choice
• Off-peak • Peak period
• Weekends
• Feeder service

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Transit Ridership
• Shrinkage ratio elasticity for service elasticity is
𝑄1 − 𝑄0
%Δ𝑄 𝑄0
𝜀𝑠ℎ𝑟 = =
%Δ𝑃 𝑆1 − 𝑆0
𝑆0

 𝑄1 = After ridership
 𝑄0 = Before ridership
 𝑆1 = After fare
 𝑆0 = Before fare

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Example Problem
Example 1:
Let say that the bus route #8 carried on an average of 1000
passengers per day in the past year. The base fare during the past
year was 50 cents. If a fare increase to 75 cents was implemented,
and the resulting ridership was 805 per day, what is the fare
elasticity?

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Example Problem
Example 2:
Let say that the bus route #8 carried on an average of 1000
passengers per day in the past year. Half of the passenger on a
typical day rode during the AM and PM peak periods. The peak
and off-peak headways were 30 minutes. What would be
ridership on route #8 if headways were increased to 60 minutes
between buses? Peak headway elasticity is -0.37. off peak
headway elasticity is -0.46.

Calculate the service frequency elasticity for the service change proposed in
the above example and the ridership responses calculate from the above
problem statement.

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References
• Fundamentals of Transportation Engineering: A Multimodal
Systems Approach. By Jon D. Fricker and Robert K.
Whitford. Pearson International Edition.
• Human transit : how clearer thinking about public transit can
enrich our communities and our lives, By Jarrett Walker.
Island Press.
• http://www.apta.com/resources/workforce/national-transit-
curriculum/
• https://stride.ce.ufl.edu/course-materials-developed-by-stride/

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