Social distancing in public transport: mobilising new technologies for demand management under the Covid-19 crisis
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Published version
Author(s)
Horcher, Daniel
Singh, Ramandeep
Graham, Daniel
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Dense urban areas are especially hardly hit by the Covid-19 crisis due to the limited availability of public transport, one of the most efficient means of mass mobility. In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, public transport operators are experiencing steep declines in demand and fare revenues due to the perceived risk of infection within vehicles and other facilities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities of implementing social distancing in public transport in line with epidemiological advice. Social distancing requires effective demand management to keep vehicle occupancy rates under a predefined threshold, both spatially and temporally. We review the literature of five demand management methods enabled by new information and ticketing technologies: (i) inflow control with queueing, (ii) time and space dependent pricing, (iii) capacity reservation with advance booking, (iv) slot auctioning, and (v) tradeable travel permit schemes. Thus the paper collects the relevant literature into a single point of reference, and provides interpretation from the viewpoint of practical applicability during and after the pandemic.
Date Issued
2022-04-01
Date Acceptance
2021-04-05
Citation
Transportation, 2022, 49, pp.735-764
ISSN
0049-4488
Publisher
Springer
Start Page
735
End Page
764
Journal / Book Title
Transportation
Volume
49
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Subjects
Logistics & Transportation
0905 Civil Engineering
1205 Urban and Regional Planning
1507 Transportation and Freight Services
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-04-22