3.3. The value of congestion in public transport
Limited knowledge is available about congestion in public transport and user’s perception of congestion, which are nevertheless among the most important aspects in assessing the QoS and comfort.
Insufficient capacity may question the service availability. If for example, at the bus or the subway arrival there are no more seating or standing places, the service is no longer available for users who are present on waiting platforms. The lack of capacity on the platform increases the boarding time in proportion to the number of waiting users and varies subsequently the service frequency (Alexis Poulhes, 2011). Frequency is thus reduced and users are constrained to wait for the next service or to …show more content…
Whether for private car or public transportation projects, travel time is the common parameter to all transport means allowing their comparison. Numerous are the studies which aim at assessing the economic value of travel time spent in transit but few are which deal with the value of the comfort or congestion. In order to enhance transit attractiveness, comfort and crowd levels must be valued. In fact, because of the disutility linked to congestion and the eventual obligation to travel standing, the value of the perceived travel time increases considerably (OECD, 2014).
Congestion is a phenomenon that significantly influences the physical comfort of travelers (STIF, 2006), creating annoyances to the user who needs thus to ignore the psychological comfort and accept some disutility (loss of control over ones activities in the transit mean of transport, lack of privacy...). In addition, congestion generate behaviors reducing the sense of individual responsibility and leading to uncivil deeds (STIF, …show more content…
Furthermore, these values increase considerably when passengers have to stand in congested trains to reach an additional travel time up to 27minutes. On a 20 minutes trip, an estimation of perceived comfort penalty adds 10.9 minutes to travel time (Kroes and al, 2006).
This study had as result the cost-benefit analysis tool and project benefits assessment of the "RER B Nord" line for which proposed solutions to improve the on-time performance added 32% gain in travel time; a benefit due only to the improvement of reliability and quality of
Limited knowledge is available about congestion in public transport and user’s perception of congestion, which are nevertheless among the most important aspects in assessing the QoS and comfort.
Insufficient capacity may question the service availability. If for example, at the bus or the subway arrival there are no more seating or standing places, the service is no longer available for users who are present on waiting platforms. The lack of capacity on the platform increases the boarding time in proportion to the number of waiting users and varies subsequently the service frequency (Alexis Poulhes, 2011). Frequency is thus reduced and users are constrained to wait for the next service or to …show more content…
Whether for private car or public transportation projects, travel time is the common parameter to all transport means allowing their comparison. Numerous are the studies which aim at assessing the economic value of travel time spent in transit but few are which deal with the value of the comfort or congestion. In order to enhance transit attractiveness, comfort and crowd levels must be valued. In fact, because of the disutility linked to congestion and the eventual obligation to travel standing, the value of the perceived travel time increases considerably (OECD, 2014).
Congestion is a phenomenon that significantly influences the physical comfort of travelers (STIF, 2006), creating annoyances to the user who needs thus to ignore the psychological comfort and accept some disutility (loss of control over ones activities in the transit mean of transport, lack of privacy...). In addition, congestion generate behaviors reducing the sense of individual responsibility and leading to uncivil deeds (STIF, …show more content…
Furthermore, these values increase considerably when passengers have to stand in congested trains to reach an additional travel time up to 27minutes. On a 20 minutes trip, an estimation of perceived comfort penalty adds 10.9 minutes to travel time (Kroes and al, 2006).
This study had as result the cost-benefit analysis tool and project benefits assessment of the "RER B Nord" line for which proposed solutions to improve the on-time performance added 32% gain in travel time; a benefit due only to the improvement of reliability and quality of