2013 Session: 648

• Hailing in the Rain: Temporal and Weather-Related Variations in Taxi Ridership and Taxi Demand-Supply Equilibrium
  Abstract: The current study investigates temporal and weather-related variation in taxi ridership patterns in NYC from the perspective of demand-supply equilibrium. For this purpose, the study conducted a computationally heavy analysis of a taxi GPS data set with more than 147 million records covering 10 months of activity. It found that there were significant variations in ridership and trip distances for different DOW-TOD-weather condition periods. Drivers, as the actors who determine taxi supply, respond to this variation in a way that maintains their incomes above approximately $20 per hour. The impact of weather is also investigated. Snow conditions do not affect the hourly revenues but when there is rainfall, drivers make more frequent and slightly shorter trips that increase their income. After reaching their income target, drivers may end their shift early, a finding that may explain the perceived taxi shortage during prolonged rain conditions. It was also shown that within existing trip frequency and trip distance patterns, the impact of a proposed taxi fare increase in NYC on hourly revenues would vary among different TOD periods. This suggests that a fare increase has the potential to alter the temporal taxi supply as well as the taxi lease rents (which vary by shift) for certain periods. Based on these findings, the paper provides insights into the temporal and weather-related variation in taxi demand-supply equilibrium. Its findings can assist policymakers who regulate the taxi industry.
  Authors: Kamga, Camille; Yazici, M. Anil; Singhal, Abhishek
  Authors: Kamga, Camille; Yazici, M. Anil; Singhal, Abhishek
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation
  Session: 648
  Paper Number: 13-3131
• Why Do Regulated Jitney Services Often Fail? Evidence from New York City Group Ride Vehicle Project
  Abstract: This research is informed by a policy experiment. In June 2010, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) reduced or eliminated service on dozens of bus routes in throughout the city. These cuts, coupled with higher transit fares, dramatically reduced transit access for many city residents. Shortly after the service reductions went into effect, the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) announced the Group Ride Vehicle Pilot Project to bring commuter van (jitney) service to five service areas left without regular bus service. The TLC anticipated that the Group Ride Vehicle (GRV) project would mimic the success of existing jitney services and provide transit access for people without any. The pilot project targeted service areas in Brooklyn and Queens and the TLC received commitments from five existing commuter van operators for the project. Once announced, the project was controversial for multiple reasons, including the City’s willingness to privatize transit service with licensed but non-union van service and equity considerations for passengers who had to pay two fares to get into Manhattan. The first GRV licensed vans began service in September 2010, and despite optimism from operators and the TLC, the program was unofficially discontinued after a few months, and the second phase was never implemented.Though the GRV failed to attract riders, it highlighted the overall importance of commuter vans for certain transit dependent populations and suggests many challenges to formalizing informal transit in the United States. Using the TLC Group Ride Vehicle project as our starting point, we explore why informal jitneys in the United States succeed, and whether the conditions under which jitney services prosper are compatible with conventional transit operations. Focus groups with operators, unstructured interviews with drivers and riders and participant observation are used to help explain the challenges facing the formalization of jitney services in a mature city. Our qualitative analysis suggests may reasons the GRV project failed: a lack of subsidy to maintain service and build demand, a two-month gap between the bus service cuts and jitney service implementation, poorly branded service, and confusing language used to describe the program. We argue that some of these reasons are more perceived than real, but all of these reasons reflect the difficulty in transitioning niche jitney service to general purpose transit service.
  Authors: King, David; Goldwyn, Eric
  Authors: King, David; Goldwyn, Eric
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation
  Session: 648
  Paper Number: 13-3918
• Operations of a Taxi Fleet for Advance Reservations Using Electric Vehicles and Charging Stations
  Abstract: This research studies the operations of a taxi fleet that uses electric vehicles to cater solely for trips with advance reservations. The idea is for a dispatch system to chain multiple trips to form a route and offers it to a taxi driver. We describe this unique problem as the Singapore Taxi Advance Reservation with Electric vehicles (STARE) problem. As electric vehicles have limited running time before recharging, the problem of minimizing number of taxis used is formulated as a customized Paired Pick-up and Delivery Problem with Time Window and Charging Station (PPDPTWCS). A two-phase heuristic approach has been proposed to solve the PPDPTWCS. Numerical experiments have been performed to compare three initial solution approaches (namely nearest neighbor, sweep and earliest time insertion heuristics), effect of different recharging plans and different number of Charging Stations (CSs), using the simulated Central Business District (CBD) network in Singapore. The results show that (i) the earliest time insertion heuristic produces the best initial solutions; (ii) longer maximum running time before recharging results in a smaller fleet of taxi used, fewer visits to the CSs, longer running time per taxi and higher average revenue per driver; and (iii) changing the number of CSs has little effect on the system’s performance measures.
  Authors: Wang, Hao; Cheu, Ruey Long
  Authors: Wang, Hao; Cheu, Ruey Long
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation
  Session: 648
  Paper Number: 13-1717
  Practice-Ready: Yes
• Simulation and Evaluation of Applying an Intelligent Taxi Operation System in Shenzhen, China, Using a Microscopic Multiagent Approach
  Abstract: This paper presents a microscopic multi-agent approach for simulating urban taxi service, where passengers¡¯ and taxi drivers¡¯ behaviors are captured at an individual level. Floating car data (FCD), from which real passenger travel demand data and real hourly road link travel time data are acquired, enable a realistic environment to be represented in this multi-agent system. This enables interventions (such as policies and regulations) on urban taxi services to be evaluated in a near-realistic environment. The multi-agent-based simulation system is then used to analyze the impacts of applying a city-level real-time taxi call and dispatch system in Shenzhen, China. The results suggest that the satisfactions of both passengers and taxi drivers can be considerably improved in terms of the average passenger waiting time and the average taxi utilization rate, respectively, by applying a real-time taxi call and dispatch system for urban taxi services. In such a system, the passenger participation rate, or the rate at which passengers take advantage of the proposed real-time taxi call and dispatch system, plays an important role.
  Authors: Yu, Lin-Jun; Peng, Zhong-Ren; Zhang, Jian
  Authors: Yu, Lin-Jun; Peng, Zhong-Ren; Zhang, Jian
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation
  Session: 648
  Paper Number: 13-2363
  Practice-Ready: Yes
• Operations of a Taxi Fleet for Advance Reservations Using Electric Vehicles and Charging Stations
  Authors: Wang, Hao
  Authors: Wang, Hao
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation
  Session: 648
  Paper Number: 13-1717
• Hailing in the Rain: Temporal and Weather-Related Variations in Taxi Ridership and Taxi Demand-Supply Equilibrium
  Authors: Yazici, M. Anil
  Authors: Yazici, M. Anil
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation
  Subject: Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation
  Session: 648
  Paper Number: 13-3131