Engineering

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  • (2023) Ma, Mingyou
    Thesis
    With the rapid growth of e-commerce, the surging freight traffic is imposing unprecedented pressure on urban transport systems. To mitigate negative impacts of urban freight traffic, the integrated public transport system, i.e., urban co-modality, has been proposed to utilize the existing urban passenger transport system to also carry freight during off-peak hours. Despite the benefits, the co-modal system might reduce public transport reliability and demand due to freight loading/unloading and transshipment operations. This thesis focuses on understanding and modelling the emerging integrated co-modal system for passengers and freight, and investigating and managing its system-wide impacts. This thesis first uses the smart transit card data to understand the travel behaviour of public transport users, and quantify the impact of public transport reliability on users’ day-to-day travel choices. We find that public transport users tend to reserve safety margin for the unforeseen service unreliability. Besides, we also find that there was under-utilized capacity in transit services operating during off-peak hours, which indicates the potential for transporting freight in the public transport system. With the understanding of service-reliability-based travel choices, this thesis then models the mixed freight-passenger cross-type flow and strategic interactions among operators and users in a standalone co-modal system. We first construct a fundamental game-theoretical model based on the essential characteristics of the co-modal system, such as negative impacts of freight on passenger demand. In the fundamental model, we examine the strategic interaction between a transit operator and a freight operator. We show that introducing the co-modality has the potential to generate Pareto-improving outcomes for the operators. This model is extended by considering the endogenous interactions among freight customers, passengers, freight and transit operators. We find that the co-modal system may enhance levels of services for both passengers and freight customers. Building upon these, this thesis further explores the impact of the co-modal system on the freight transport market with outsourcing arrangements. The non-cooperative and cooperative games among a freight carrier, a freight integrator, and a transit operator are modelled, and the co-modal system performance is quantified.