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Title: A bathtub model of transit congestion
Studies of transit dwell times suggest that the delay caused by passengers boarding and alighting rises with the number of passengers on each vehicle. This paper incorporates such a “friction effect” into an isotropic model of a transit route with elastic demand. We derive a strongly unimodal “Network Alighting Function” giving the steady-state rate of passenger flows in terms of the accumulation of passengers on vehicles. Like the Network Exit Function developed for isotropic models of vehicle traffic, the system may exhibit hypercongestion. Since ridership depends on travel times, wait times and the level of crowding, the physical model is used to solve for (possibly multiple) equilibria as well as the social optimum. Using replicator dynamics to describe the evolution of demand, we also investigate the asymptotic local stability of different kinds of equilibria.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2052512
PAR ID:
10538979
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Publisher / Repository:
Elsevier
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Transportation Research Part B: Methodological
Volume:
181
Issue:
C
ISSN:
0191-2615
Page Range / eLocation ID:
102892
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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