APPROACH FOR DETERMINATION DAILY PASSENGER TRAFFIC ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT USING SITE SURVEY FINDINGS

Abstract

This paper outlines a methodology for analyzing data collected from site surveys to assess passenger flow on public transportation. To ascertain daily passenger volumes, it's necessary to manually or semi-automatically count the number of boarding passengers throughout the operational day. However, for a comprehensive public transport network with numerous routes, this approach demands a considerable workforce and incurs significant time and financial expenses. While visually surveying passenger flows offers the advantage of concurrently studying multiple routes, the daily values obtained through this method fail to account for the turnover rate on the trip. The paper introduces a methodology that combines two types of site surveys: passenger counts within the vehicle's interior and assessments of occupancy rates of the vehicles at selected city sites (public transport stops). The research demonstrates that conducting surveys within the vehicle's interior facilitates the acquisition of peak and off-peak turnover rates for both the direct and reverse directions of the route. Additionally, assessing passenger volumes at specific locations enables the determination of daily passenger flows in both directions during peak and off-peak periods. These obtained turnover rates are then applied to refine the daily passenger flow estimates for both directions of the route. The paper presents the utilization of the proposed methodology through a case study involving one of the bus routes operated by a private enterprise in Kryvyi Rih. Furthermore, the methodology underwent testing by comparing the daily passenger flow values for municipal bus routes, as determined by the proposed method, with the indicators from the operator's daily transaction reports for the same time frame. The disparity between the indicators falls within the range of 5 – 7%, suggesting the suitability and reliability of the proposed approach.

Keywords: passenger flow, public transport, turnover rate, passenger flow survey, transport modeling.