This paper presents a practical approach for monitoring public transportation systems' performance by focusing on customer evaluations. Within the framework of the developed method, 22 indicators are aggregated for 6 different measures, which are time, cost, accessibility and transfer, comfort, safety – security and quality of service respectively. Passenger Oriented Performance IndeX (POPIX) has been developed and applied to the Istanbul Metro, Light Rail and Tram systems. The goal of this research is to propose a new customer oriented performance index for transportation systems, enabling a reliable and objective base for monitoring system performance by setting performance goals and identifying priorities. Meanwhile, the proposed methodology also allows for the investigation of the performance changes of a particular transportation system and for performance comparison of different systems directly from the customer point of view. The data of the index is attained by the Customer Satisfaction Survey of Istanbul Public Railways' 2005, 2006 and 2007. The POPIX methodology has been defined and the corresponding POPIX scores are calculated for the systems investigated. Furthermore, the % POPIX concept has been developed for the comparison of different systems. Lastly, the shifted POPIX concept has been proposed for more reliable comparison between different years. The framework has been implemented to the public railway systems and individual index scores are calculated for each indicator, measure and overall system. The measures of cost, accessibility and transfer and comfort have lower index scores. Metro index scores are superior in comparison to the Tram and Light Rail for all the years analyzed.

We analyzed the travel patterns of senior citizens in Seoul using Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) data. We focused specifically on mode choices and transfer patterns. Results showed that 99% of trips made by senior citizens (individuals over 65 years old), who were given free subway transit passes, consisted of single-mode trips. Average travel time was 31 minutes, and subway travel times were longer than bus travel times. Individuals made fewer transfers, took longer metro trips, and paid smaller fares when using their free subway transit cards. They were more negatively sensitive to bus travel time than metro travel time. Encouraging older adult travelers to use transfers that increase costs to a modest extent might help improve travel quality among a group of individuals who find it difficult to enter the metro system or who are uncomfortable making inter-metro transfers. Additionally, as older adults have more time, yet are economically disadvantaged and take more leisure trips, travel improvements could include adopting a time-flexible fare discount. We discuss these improvements in terms of the individual and social benefits afforded to transit passengers in South Korea.

Both safety and efficiency should be considered in high-speed train following control. The real-time calculation of dynamic safety following distance is used by the following train to understand the quality of its own following behavior. A new velocity difference control law can help the following train to adjust its own behavior from a safe and efficient steady-following state to another one if the actual following distance is greater than the safe following distance. Meanwhile, the stopping control law would work for collision avoidance when the actual following distance is less than the safe following distance. The simulation shows that the dynamic control of actual inter-train distance can be well accomplished by the behavioral adjustment of the following train, and verifies the effectiveness and feasibility of our presented methods for train following control.

The paper presents assessment of the impact of the processes handling efficiency on the transport process based on research done in the real object, using same technologies and material handling equipment. The aim of the paper was to confirm importance of loading and unloading processes of palletized cargo as an initial and final link of multimodal transport by developing methods’ proposal for monitoring and assessing the effectiveness of cargo operations as well as development of measures and comparison estimators. The analysis of the manipulation operations’ duration throughout the transport process is based on the percentile rates of manipulation and carriage in total transport process duration and the percentage of manipulating time in the duration of the carriage. These indicators and examined loading and unloading times, are the basis for the development of scheduling algorithms for optimizing transport processes on the scale of the whole transport chain. This data is also a helpful input to support strategic decisions on the allocation of financial resources for the development of infrastructure and terminal equipment, warehouses and other facilities.