https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33710 2026-06-04T18:13:17Z 2026-06-04T18:13:17Z Rayaprolu, Hema Levinson, David Matthew Lahoorpoor, Bahman https://hdl.handle.net/2123/34748 2026-01-22T04:03:01Z 2026-01-22T00:00:00Z

Historical GTFS Dataset for Sydney 1855-2015 Rayaprolu, Hema; Levinson, David Matthew; Lahoorpoor, Bahman These files represent digitised Sydney’s historic public transport networks and constructed General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) datasets covering a period from 1855 to 2015. The complementary paper presents the methodology developed to generate historical GTFS data from archival sources. To validate the approach, we compared accessibility metrics derived from the generated GTFS for 2015 with those obtained from the officially published GTFS for the same year. The results show that the generated GTFS reproduced access levels within 2% of the official data, demonstrating the reliability of our method.

2026-01-22T00:00:00Z Levinson, David Matthew Sarkar, Somwrita https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33521 2026-04-28T03:07:51Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

A Web of Nets: How Everything is a Network Levinson, David Matthew; Sarkar, Somwrita A Web of Nets, edited by David M. Levinson and Somwrita Sarkar explores the profound influence and universal relevance of networks, from physical systems to abstract constructs, connecting diverse fields and phenomena. Whether natural or man-made, these interconnected systems shape our understanding of science, technology, and culture. Structured into comprehensive sections, the book navigates through network principles, theories, and applications: Principles and Theory: Understand the foundational aspects of network science, including graph theory, topology, and network formation. Key concepts such as accessibility, resilience, and scaling reveal the hidden patterns underlying complex systems. Applications Across Domains: Biological Systems: Explore the networks within cells, organs, and ecosystems, revealing their interconnectedness and impact on life processes. Physical Systems: Delve into the cosmic web, chemical reactions, and transport systems, where networks determine flows, capacities, and dynamics. Technological Innovations: Learn about advancements in computing, communication, and infrastructure, illustrating how networks enable modern life. Social and Cultural Networks: Unpack the structure of social interactions, cultural exchanges, and economic markets, showing how they shape societies. Analysis and Evolution: Examine methods to analyze connectivity, centrality, and flow within networks, and understand their evolution over time. Techniques like PageRank, space syntax, and feedback loops provide powerful tools to decode network behavior. Emergent Phenomena: Discover how networks give rise to self-organization, emergent behaviors, and innovation. Case studies range from neural circuits and the brain's connectome to the assembly line and supply chains. Blending theoretical insights with practical applications, A Web of Nets is both a comprehensive reference and a thought-provoking exploration. It bridges disciplines, fostering a deeper appreciation of the patterns connecting the natural, physical, and human worlds. Engage with this captivating analysis to unlock a greater understanding of the networks shaping our universe.

2025-01-01T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David Matthew https://hdl.handle.net/2123/32483 2026-05-07T02:24:19Z 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

Access, the Built Environment, and Behavior Wu, Hao; Levinson, David Matthew Access is an essential component of the built environment that measures the ease of reaching desired destinations; the level of access is a combined result from both land use and transport infrastructure. Other facets of the built environment include density, street design, pedestrian and bike infrastructure, policy, etc. Individual travel behaviour is shaped in part by the built environment, which has implications for both the well-being of individuals, and the sustainability and vitality of a city. The built environment of a city is in a continuous state of change; developments in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and work-from-home (WFH) have the potential to redefine the meaning of the built environment, and access. This chapter discusses the evolving interaction between access, the built environment, and travel and activity patterns, and what these changes would mean for the future of transport.

2024-01-01T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/29949 2026-04-28T03:07:53Z 2023-02-02T00:00:00Z

Governing for Access Levinson, David M. The only reason to locate anywhere is to be near some people, places, and things (opportunities) and be far from others. Access quantifies the ability to reach, or be reached by, people, places, and things. It explains much of the variation in real estate prices and development density. It does so in large part because real estate capitalises into land value the ease of travel to desired opportunities. Physical infrastructure networks like roads and rails exist to connect within and between places faster than travel without them. Transport agencies often plan networks as if the land use is given, and regulators plan and zone development as if the network were unchangeable. Since the efficiency of a transport network depends on the land use pattern and the efficiency of the land use pattern depends on the network configuration, systems which coordinate these may be more efficient than those where transport and land use are planned independently. This is especially pertinent for long-term capital investments which are largely irreversible. While compared to some peer cities, Sydney has done a good job coordinating transport services and land development, it can do much better. This would lead to shorter commutes lengths, greater public and active transport mode shares, higher employment and incomes, and greater productivity. Overall Sydney would be a more desirable and convenient city. This is also important as better coordinating transport with land development while better balancing jobs and housing will thereby reduce motor vehicle travel. Reducing private vehicle travel will remain critical to addressing environmental problems such as CO2 emissions and air and water pollution, and increasing traveler safety. Modern urban planning confronts the challenge of coordinating policies in transport investment, land use and development regulation, budgets and taxation, and capital spending so that they reinforce instead of undermine each other.1 Several inter-related problems with transport - land use planning processes in New South Wales are apparent: 1. Mobility-centric transport planning and density-centric land use planning. 2. The uncoordinated and disjointed nature of decision making, wherein transport and land use decisions made by different organisations assume the other is unchanged. 3. Lack of systematic feedback in the infrastructure/land development cycle, so the gains in land value from new transport facilities don’t generate revenue could have helped fund the infrastructure in the first place. 4. The political cycle reversing long-term strategic planning decisions. 5. Lack of institutional knowledge caused by lack of long-term stability in senior staff and organisational structure. 6. Lack of domain expertise within operating agencies leading to: • Very high costs (and unexpectedly high costs) for infrastructure, reducing the capacity for investment. • Under-utilisation (over-forecast of demand) of many major new infrastructure projects. 7. Lack of transparency and authentic public participation in decision processes. This report contains several major parts. The next part, The Value of Access to Opportunity (chapter 2) discusses the framework of the Fundamental Model of Access. Then chapter 3 of the report, Operationalising Access describes formally how access is measured. This is followed be an examination of how Infill Stations Expand Access (chapter 4), including an example that illustrates how access might change between two public transport service scenarios when an infill station is added, and a sample of some potential sites for Infill Stations on the Sydney network are provided. Access-Oriented Planning Globally: Case Studies (chapter 5), discusses how integrated transport and land use planning is conducted in several key metropolitan regions globally. It looks at the governance structures in the Randstad (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and The Hague) in the Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. The subsequent section, Governing for Access in New South Wales: A Future Sydney Commission (chapter 6), describes how long-term strategic transport - land use planning might be conducted in Greater Sydney, with an aim to address several of those inter-related problems. The final section (chapter 7) concludes the report, showing how the proposed strategy addresses the key problems identified above.

2023-02-02T00:00:00Z Li, Manman Cui, Mengying Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27306 2026-04-28T03:07:51Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

Job and worker density and transit network dynamics Li, Manman; Cui, Mengying; Levinson, David M. This paper proposes a general framework to explore the interaction between land use and transport systems. Hypotheses about those relationships are generated. A series of statistical tests are conducted to explain the co-development of land use and transit networks for metropolitan areas at a micro-geographic scale and to disentangle causes and effects. The specific case of Minneapolis - Saint Paul (Twin Cities) metropolitan is examined using a panel of block-level land use and stop-level transit data. The results show that the development of land use, specifically, resident workers, can lead to the increase in bus demand, and thus further induce the increase in bus supply; the co-development of bus demand and supply is simultaneous on a yearly basis.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Allen, Jeff Farber, Steven Greaves, Stephen Clinton, Geoffrey Wu, Hao Sarkar, Somwrita Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27305 2026-04-28T03:07:52Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

Immigrant settlement patterns, transit accessibility, and transit use Allen, Jeff; Farber, Steven; Greaves, Stephen; Clinton, Geoffrey; Wu, Hao; Sarkar, Somwrita; Levinson, David M. Public transit is immensely important among recent immigrants for enabling daily travel and activity participation. The objective of this study is to examine whether immigrants settle in areas of high or low transit accessibility and how this affects transit mode share. This is analyzed via a comparison of two gateway cities: Sydney, Australia and Toronto, Canada. We find that in both cities, recent immigrants have greater levels of public transit accessibility, on average, compared to the overall population, but the geography of immigrant settlement is more suburbanized in Toronto than in Sydney. Secondly, using logistic regression models with spatial filters, we find significant positive relationships between immigrant settlement patterns and transit mode share, after controlling for transit accessibility and other socio-economic factors, indicating an increased reliance on public transit by recent immigrants. Via a sensitivity analysis, we find that these effects are greatest in peripheral suburbs and rural areas. These findings highlight the overall importance of providing public transit to immigrant communities, but transit usage by recent immigrants will vary regionally and depending on local neighbourhood context.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Ji, Ang Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27304 2026-04-28T03:07:51Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

An energy loss-based vehicular injury severity model Ji, Ang; Levinson, David M. How crashes translate into physical injuries remains controversial. Previous studies recommended a predictor, Delta-V, to describe the crash consequences in terms of mass and impact speed of vehicles in crashes. This study adopts a new factor, energy loss-based vehicular injury severity (ELVIS), to explain the effects of the energy absorption of two vehicles in a collision. This calibrated variable, which is fitted with regression-based and machine learning models, is compared with the widely-used Delta-V predictor. A multivariate ordered logistic regression with multiple classes is then estimated. The results align with the observation that heavy vehicles are more likely to have inherent protection and rigid structures, especially in the side direction, and so suffer less impact.

2020-01-01T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27301 2026-04-28T03:07:53Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

The ensemble approach to forecasting: A review and synthesis Wu, Hao; Levinson, David M. Ensemble forecasting is a modeling approach that combines data sources, models of different types, with alternative assumptions, using distinct pattern recognition methods. The aim is to use all available information in predictions, without the limiting and arbitrary choices and dependencies resulting from a single statistical or machine learning approach or a single functional form, or results from a limited data source. Uncertainties are systematically accounted for. Outputs of ensemble models can be presented as a range of possibilities, to indicate the amount of uncertainty in modeling. We review methods and applications of ensemble models both within and outside of transport research. The review finds that ensemble forecasting generally improves forecast accuracy, robustness in many fields, particularly in weather forecasting where the method originated. We note that ensemble methods are highly siloed across different disciplines, and both the knowledge and application of ensemble forecasting are lacking in transport. In this paper we review and synthesize methods of ensemble forecasting with a unifying framework, categorizing ensemble methods into two broad and not mutually exclusive categories, namely combining models, and combining data; this framework further extends to ensembles of ensembles. We apply ensemble forecasting to transport related cases, which shows the potential of ensemble models in improving forecast accuracy and reliability. This paper sheds light on the apparatus of ensemble forecasting, which we hope contributes to the better understanding and wider adoption of ensemble models.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Wang, Yingshuo https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27158 2026-05-05T03:38:59Z 2021-12-08T00:00:00Z

Network Econometrics and the Evolution of Transport Systems Wang, Yingshuo This thesis systematically develops a network correlation matrix that explicitly distinguishes competitive and complementary link pairs in transportation networks. Embedding the matrix in network econometric analysis, this thesis consolidates that incorporating representative spatial information with a network perspective is capable of improving the performance of traffic forecasting models. The method is validated in the context of a real-world transport system rather than within simulated settings adopted by previous research. An Autoregressive-Distributed Lag (ARDL) model is specified, and reveals that the combination of correlation strength and magnitude of lagged flow change on correlated links is an significant predictor of future traffic flow. This thesis innovatively extends network econometric methods, previously exclusively used for traffic flow forecasting, to the domain of network structure prediction by specifying a logit model. It finds that complementary and competitive links play distinct roles in shaping the network structure. If positively correlated, a link is more likely to undergo the same structural change influential links underwent previously where the influence is measured by a combination of correlation strength and link importance, reflected by historical flow level. Additionally, this thesis establishes a digitized database of the Sydney tramway system, providing a complete set of data for more research.

2021-12-08T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. Wu, Hao Lahoorpoor, Bahman Rayaprolu, Hema Kohan, Rachel Haddock, Ben https://hdl.handle.net/2123/23732 2026-04-28T03:07:51Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

Liverpool Sustainable Urban Mobility Study Levinson, David M.; Wu, Hao; Lahoorpoor, Bahman; Rayaprolu, Hema; Kohan, Rachel; Haddock, Ben University of Sydney and Arup have been engaged as research and development consultants by iMOVE and Liverpool City Council to develop a Sustainable Urban Mobility Study (SUMS) for the FAST corridor focusing on the areas of Miller, Middleton Grange, and Austral. The study aims to assess the suitability of key transport and land use scenarios and identify recommendations that are practical, sustainable, complimentary of outstanding committed transport infrastructure and commensurate with national, regional and local policy. Recommendations intend to provide input into future Fifteenth Avenue Corridor transport and master planning work. The study reviews existing multi-modal mobility data and travel behaviour in the Liverpool LGA, and summarises the key findings of the Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS) public engagement activities, undertakes access analysis for future transport and land use scenarios, and based on the scenario outcomes and community concerns provides a suite of modal recommendations aligned to the planning priorities identified in the Draft LSPS. The study supplements the LSPS and serves as a transport action plan. It aims to demonstrate how transport will be improved in suburbs such as Miller, Middleton Grange and Austral but also establish principles to improve transport services for all the suburbs in Liverpool. The aims and objectives of this study include: Assess what mobility options might exist in the future for the Liverpool community and the opportunities these present. Identify how to achieve improved urban mobility outcomes in areas surrounding the FAST Corridor including particularly: New release locations (eg. Austral and Middleton Grange); Existing locations with significant socio-economic challenges (eg. Miller). Propose recommendations with indicative staging that aligns with the Draft LSPS including policy actions to help inform the review process of Liverpool Council's DCP and LEP process as well as supporting the Liverpool Local Housing Strategy, and improve transport services across the Liverpool LGA.

2020-01-01T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. King, David https://hdl.handle.net/2123/23733 2026-04-28T03:07:51Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

Transport Access Manual: A Guide for Measuring Connection between People and Places Levinson, David M.; King, David This Manual is a guide for quantifying and evaluating access for anybody interested in truly understanding how to measure the performance of transport and land use configurations. It contains enough to help transport and planning professionals achieve a more comprehensive look at their city or region than traditional transport analysis allows. It provides a point of entry for interested members of the public as well as practitioners by being organized in a logical and straightforward way.

2020-01-01T00:00:00Z Cui, Mengying Levinson, David M https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22849 2026-04-28T02:43:42Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

Multi-Activity Access: How Activity Choice Affects Opportunity Cui, Mengying; Levinson, David M It is commonly seen that accessibility is measured considering only one opportunity or activity type or purpose of interest, e.g., jobs. The value of a location, and thus the overall access, however, depends on the ability to reach many different types of opportunities. This paper clarifies the concept of multi-activity accessibility, which combines multiple types of opportunities into a single aggregated access measure, and aims to find more comprehensive answers for the questions: what is being accessed, by what extent, and how it varies by employment status and by gender. The Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan region is selected for the measurement of multi-activity accessibility, using both primal and dual measures of cumulative access, for auto and transit. It is hypothesized that workers and non-workers, and males and females have different accessibility profiles. This research demonstrates its practicality at the scale of a metropolitan area, and highlights the differences in access for workers and non-workers, and men and women, because of differences in their activity participation.

2020-01-01T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M Wu, Hao https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22673 2026-04-28T03:07:53Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

Towards a General Theory of Access Levinson, David M; Wu, Hao This paper integrates and extends many of the concepts of accessibility deriving from Hansen’s (1959) seminal paper, and develops a theory of access that generalizes from the particular measures of access that have become increasingly common. Access is now measured for a particular place by a particular mode for a particular purpose at a particular time in a particular year. General access is derived as a theoretical ideal that would be measured for all places, all modes, all purposes, at all times, over the lifecycle of a project. It is posited that more general access measures better explain spatial location phenomena.

2020-01-01T00:00:00Z Ji, Ang Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22256 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2020-05-01T00:00:00Z

Estimating the Social Gap With a Game Theory Model of Lane Changing Ji, Ang; Levinson, David M. Changing lanes is a commonly-used technique for drivers to either overtake slow-moving cars or enter/exit highway ramps. Optional lane changes may save drivers travel time but increase the risk of collision with others. Drivers make such decisions based on experience and emotion rather than analysis, and thus may fail to select the best solution while in a dynamic state of flux. Unlike human drivers, autonomous vehicles can systematically analyze their surroundings and make real-time decisions accordingly. This paper develops a game theory-based lane-changing model by comparing two types of optimization methods. To realize our expectations, we need to first investigate the payoff function of drivers in discretionary lane-changing maneuvers and then quantify it in an equation of costs that trades-off safety and time-saving. After the evaluation for each alternative strategy combination, the results show that there exists a social gap in the discretionary lane-changing game. To deal with that problem, we provide some suggestions for future policy as well as autonomous vehicle controller designs, offering solutions to reduce the impact of disturbances and crashes caused by inappropriate lane changes, and also, inspire further research about more complex cases.

2020-05-01T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David M https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22234 2026-05-07T02:24:20Z 2020-05-06T00:00:00Z

Unifying Access Wu, Hao; Levinson, David M Since Hansen’s seminal 1959 paper, measures of access have evolved with technology and through practical applications. The myriad of distinct but familially related access measures created many more options to measure places, but has sown needless confusion. This paper systematically reviews measures of access across disciplines. We categorize measures of access, covering both mainstream and innovative but less widely-used techniques; each access measure (topological, contiguous, cumulative opportunities, utility, flow-based measures) is separated into Primal and Dual measure, based on whether accessibility is represented by the level of reachable opportunities or by the travel impedance. We show access measures are unified by the same intrinsic structure consisting of travel impedance and the opportunities reachable, and that access measured by different methods are equivalent under specific assumptions on travel impedance, and the accounting of relevant opportunities. This paper overviews the use of access measures from the existing literature, and clarifies measures of access, which should help users in the selection and appropriate use of access measures for the relevant context.

2020-05-06T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21853 2026-04-22T03:32:48Z 2020-02-17T00:00:00Z

Access Across New Zealand Wu, Hao; Levinson, David M. This report measures access to jobs and to resident workers for 3 major New Zealand cities: Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington, covering around 49% of employment opportunities and 46% of resident workers nationally. Access is the ease of reaching valuable destinations, namely urban opportunities. Access is measured in the report as the cumulative number of jobs (or workers) reachable within travel time thresholds. Access by four modes of transport are included: automobile, transit, walking, and cycling, and further compares access between cities, and across modes. City level access measures are produced as a population-weighted average to best represent the experience of the working population. The effects of traffic congestion on automobile travel times, and the walking and transfer elements of the transit mode are reflected in the access measures. The access measurements capture the combined efficiency of land use and transport infrastructure in facilitating people reaching valued destinations. Automobile provides better access than transit, walking, or cycling. Auckland has the highest regional job and resident worker numbers, and the best overall automobile access among the three cities. The majority of jobs and workers within Christchurch and Wellington can be reached by automobile within 30 minutes, so increasing travel time beyond 30 minutes has little effect on raising access in this two cities. Transit access is at a significant disadvantage compared to automobile. Transit reaches 12% of jobs reachable by automobile within 30 minutes in Auckland, 17% in Christchurch, and 38% in Wellington. Wellington has the fewest number of employment opportunities and resident workers among the three cities, but has the highest number of jobs reachable by transit at the 30-minute threshold. Transit accessibility tends to be higher in city centers, and low in other places. Cycling provides a viable option for improving accessibility. Assuming cyclists are willing to ride on-street, more opportunities can be reached by cycling than by transit in all three cities. Within 30 minutes, cycling can reach between two to three times the number of urban opportunities reachable by transit in all three cities. Walking access is lower than other modes of transport. Wellington has the highest walking access to jobs, suggesting a close proximity between residences and high-density employment centers. Christchurch has the lowest walking access to both jobs and workers. Accessibility measurements are made at the 'Areal Unit' level for 8:00 am trip departure time. Maps of 30-minute accessibility are included in this report.

2020-02-17T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. King, David A. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21629 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2019-03-01T00:00:00Z

A Political Economy of Access: Infrastructure, Networks, Cities, and Institutions Levinson, David M.; King, David A. Why should you read another book about transport and land use? This book differs in that we won’t focus on empirical arguments – we present political arguments. We argue the political aspects of transport policy shouldn’t be assumed away or treated as a nuisance. Political choices are the core reasons our cities look and function the way they do. There is no original sin that we can undo that will lead to utopian visions of urban life. The book begins by introducing and expanding on the idea of Accessibility. Then we proceed through several major parts: Infrastructure Preservation, Network Expansion, Cities, and Institutions. Infrastructure preservation concerns the relatively short-run issues of how to maintain and operate the existing surface transport system (roads and transit). Network expansion in contrast is a long-run problem, how to enlarge the network, or rather, why enlarging the network is now so difficult. Cities examines how we organize, regulate, and expand our cities to address the failures of transport policy, and falls into the time-frame of the very long-run, as property rights and land uses are often stickier than the concrete of the network is durable. In the part on Institutions we consider things that might at first blush appear to be short-run and malleable, are in fact very long-run. Institutions seem to outlast the infrastructure they manage. Many of the transport and land use problems we want to solve already have technical solutions. What these problems don’t have, and what we hope to contribute, are political solutions. We expect the audience for this book to be practitioners, planners, engineers, advocates, urbanists, students of transport, and fellow academics.

2019-03-01T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21630 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2019-12-01T00:00:00Z

The 30-Minute City: Designing for Access Levinson, David M. This book describes how to implement The 30-Minute City. The first part of the book explains accessibility. We next consider access through history (chapter 2). Access is the driving force behind how cities were built. Its use today is described when looking at access and the Greater Sydney Commission’s plan for Sydney. We then examine short-run fixes: things that can be done instantaneously, or nearly so, at low budget to restore access for people, which include retiming traffic signals (chapter 3) and deploying bike sharing (chapter 5) supported by protected bike lane networks (chapter 4), as well public transport timetables (chapter 6). We explore medium-run fixes that include implementing rapid bus networks (chapter 7) and configuring how people get to train stations by foot and on bus (chapter 8). We turn to longer-run fixes. These are as much policy changes as large investments, and include job/worker balance (chapter 10) and network restructuring (chapter 9) as well as urban restoration (chapter 11), suburban retrofit (chapter 12), and greenfield development (chapter 13). We conclude with thoughts about the ‘pointlessness’ of cities and how to restructure practice (chapter 14). The appendices provide detail on access measurement (Appendix A), the idea of accessibility loss (B), valuation (C), the rationale for the 30-minute threshold (D), and reliability (E). It concludes with what should we research (F).

2019-12-01T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. Marshall, Wesley Axhausen, Kay https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21628 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners Levinson, David M.; Marshall, Wesley; Axhausen, Kay Transport cannot be understood without reference to the location of activities (land use), and vice versa. To understand one requires understanding the other. However, for a variety of historical reasons, transport and land use are quite divorced in practice. Typical transport engineers only touch land use planning courses once at most, and only then if they attend graduate school. Land use planners understand transport the way everyone does, from the perspective of the traveler, not of the system, and are seldom exposed to transport aside from, at best, a lone course in graduate school. This text aims to bridge the chasm, helping engineers understand the elements of access that are associated not only with traffic, but also with human behavior and activity location, and helping planners understand the technology underlying transport engineering, the processes, equations, and logic that make up the transport half of the accessibility measure. It aims to help both communicate accessibility to the public.

2017-01-01T00:00:00Z Zhao, Xia Cui, Mengying Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21618 2026-04-22T03:32:49Z 2020-01-07T00:00:00Z

Temporal Variations in Activity Network Using Smart Card Data Zhao, Xia; Cui, Mengying; Levinson, David M. This study explores temporal variations in activity networks for four million passengers, differentiated as workers and non-workers, using public transport based on a large-scale smart card dataset generated over 105 days in Beijing. We aim to capture their day-to-day transition and cumulative temporal expansion in activity network using transit over days, weeks, and months. Particularly, workers and non-workers are automatically identified based on their different daily routines, whose activity networks are characterized by six features concerning space coverage, distance coverage, and frequency coverage in two ways, namely, on a per-day transition and with an accumulation of days. The transition features of the networks are statistically analyzed and compared by time, while how the expansion features evolve with time are modeled. Results show that, on weekdays, workers are more likely to travel longer (have larger distance coverage), but cover less area (have smaller space coverage) than non- workers. While opposite patterns occur on weekends. Traveling in the ‘North-South’ direction is weakly correlated with traveling in the ‘East-West’ direction. Workers on weekdays, as well as non-workers on weekends, make longer ‘North-South’ trips. Manhattan distance, trip count, and perimeter present a ∩ shape in their probability density functions, while the remaining features decline dramatically, with probability density functions fit by the exponential distribution. The distance coverage expands faster than that of space coverage. Most passengers increase coverage of space and distance when time expands (obviously no one decreases coverage over time, but some don’t change). The research enables findings on temporal load-balancing, long-term cumulative expansion in travel demands of workers and non-workers, re-balancing the distribution of existing workplace and residential location opportunities, and constructing transit-oriented developments with mixed functions over time.

2020-01-07T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David M. Sarkar, Somwrita https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21367 2026-04-22T03:32:50Z 2019-11-13T00:00:00Z

How Transit Scaling Shapes Cities Wu, Hao; Levinson, David M.; Sarkar, Somwrita Transit accessibility to jobs (the ease of reaching work opportunities with public transport) affects both residential location and commute mode choice, resulting in gradations of residential land use intensity and transit (public transport) patronage. We propose a scaling model explaining much of the variation in transit use (transit commuters per km^2) and residential land use intensity with transit accessibility. We find locations with high transit accessibility consistently have more riders and higher residential density; transit systems that provide greater accessibility and with a larger base for patronage have proportionally more ridership increase per unit of accessibility. All 48 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in our sample have a scaling factor less than 1, so a 1% increase in access to jobs produces less than 1% increase in transit riders; the largest cities have higher scaling factors than smaller cities, indicating returns to scale. The models, derived from a new database of transit accessibility measured for every minute of the peak period over 11 million US census-blocks, and estimated for 48 major cities (MSAs) across the United States, find that jobs within 45 minutes most affect transit rider density. The findings support that transit investment should focus on mature, well-developed regions.

2019-11-13T00:00:00Z Cui, Mengying Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21366 2026-04-22T03:32:51Z 2019-10-03T00:00:00Z

Shortest Paths, Travel Costs, and Traffic Cui, Mengying; Levinson, David M. This study examines path flows for road networks. Path flows sum individual route choices from individual travelers, associated with specific path objective. We estimate these flows for each cost factor of auto travel: time, safety, emission, and monetary costs, as well as their composite, internal and full cost of travel. For each factor we find the route with the minimum cumulative cost. We further explore the extent to which each cost factor contributes to explaining the observed link traffic flows given an estimated home-to-work demand pattern. The results of the Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan area indicate that flows from multiple path types, associated with different internal cost components, along with distance, provide the best fit.

2019-10-03T00:00:00Z Ji, Ang Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21348 2026-04-22T03:32:45Z 2019-11-12T00:00:00Z

A Review of Game Theory Models of Lane Changing Ji, Ang; Levinson, David M. Driver lane-changing behaviours have a significant impact on the safety and the capacity of the vehicle-based traffic system. Therefore, modeling lane-changing maneuvers has become an essential component of driving behaviour analysis. Among microscopic LC models, game theory-based lane-changing models highlight the interaction of drivers, which reveal a more realistic image of driving behaviours compared to other classic models. However, the potential of game theory to describe the human driver’s lane-changing strategies is currently under-estimated. This paper aims to review the recent development of game-theoretic models that are classified according to their different methodologies and features. They are designed for both human-driven and autonomous vehicles, and we hope they can find applications in future AV industries.

2019-11-12T00:00:00Z Rayaprolu, Hema S. Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21352 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2019-11-12T00:00:00Z

What's Access Worth? A Hedonic Pricing Approach to Valuing Cities Rayaprolu, Hema S.; Levinson, David M. Access, or the ease of reaching destinations, influences property values. Most studies investigating the relationship between the two either confuse access for proximity, or measure accessibilities in ways that make interpreting elasticities difficult. We specify, and estimate, a hedonic pricing model for house sales in the Sydney region where access by auto and transit are measured as the cumulative number of jobs (opportunities) reachable within a determined time threshold, here 45 minutes. The model was set up with structural, and neighborhood attributes in addition to the access measures, and resulted in a statistically significant fit. The results indicate a greater influence of transit access on house prices compared with auto access. Although a synergy would play out in reality, a unit increase in jobs reachable within 45 minutes by transit was estimated to increase sale price by more than six times than auto. We also demonstrated the impact of improving access on the value of postal code areas. Although the results are specific to the Sydney region, the method can be adapted to any region to estimate elasticities of sale price with respect to access.

2019-11-12T00:00:00Z Lahoorpoor, Bahman Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21351 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2019-11-12T00:00:00Z

The Transit Travel Time Machine: Comparing Three Different Tools for Travel Time Estimation Lahoorpoor, Bahman; Levinson, David M. Estimating the OD travel time matrix is an essential step in transport demand forecasting, accessibility analysis, spatial interaction modeling, and reliability analysis. Many tools have been developed to estimate the travel time between origins and destinations by different transport modes. This paper systematically reviews three tools: ArcGIS Network Analyst, OpenTripPlanner, and Google Maps Application Programming Interface, that are able to estimate an OD travel time matrix, and compares the results for 30 stations of Sydney Trains network with a same set of parameters. Bus, train (rail), and transit modes are tested. Results indicate that OpenTripPlanner produces higher transit travel times than Google Maps API with (2.8 minutes) while ArcGIS Network Analyst estimates a travel time 6 minutes higher on average than Google Maps API for transit modes.

2019-11-12T00:00:00Z Cui, Mengying Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21349 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z

Measuring full cost accessibility by auto Cui, Mengying; Levinson, David M. Traditionally accessibility has been analyzed from the perspective of the mean or expected travel time, which fails to capture the full cost, especially the external cost, of travel. The full cost accessibility (FCA) frame-work, proposed by Cui and Levinson (2018b), provides a theoretical basis to fill the gap, that combines temporal, monetary, and non-monetary internal and external travel costs into accessibility evaluations, considering the time cost, crash cost, emission cost, and monetary cost. This paper extends the FCA framework and measures the full cost accessibility by auto for the Minneapolis - St. Paul Metropolitan area, demonstrating the practicality of the FCA framework on real networks.

2019-01-01T00:00:00Z Lahoorpoor, Bahman Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21350 2026-04-22T03:32:43Z 2019-11-12T00:00:00Z

Trains, Trams, and Terraces: Population Growth and Network Expansion in Sydney: 1861-1931 Lahoorpoor, Bahman; Levinson, David M. This paper examines the changes that occurred in the tram and train networks and density of population in Sydney between the early 1860s and 1930s when both trains and trams were developing. A set of statistical analysis has been conducted using panel data representing 593 districts of Greater Sydney at suburb (neighborhood) level over each decade from 1861 to 1931. We find that trams and population density are positively associated in a positive feedback process, tram deployment leads population growth and population growth leads tram deployment, both satisfying a Granger causality test.

2019-11-12T00:00:00Z Davis, Blake Ji, Ang Liu, Bichen Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21344 2026-04-22T03:32:47Z 2019-11-11T00:00:00Z

Moving Array Traffic Probes Davis, Blake; Ji, Ang; Liu, Bichen; Levinson, David M. This paper explores the potential of moving array ‘probes’ to collect traffic data. This application simulates the prospect of mining environmental data on traffic conditions to present a cheap and potentially widespread source of traffic conditions. Based on three different simulations, we measure the magnitude and trends of probe error (comparing the probe’s ‘subjective’ or time-weighted perception with an ‘objective’ observer) in density, speed, and flow in order to validate the proposed model and compare the results with loop detectors. From these simulations, several conclusions were reached. A single probe’s error follows a double hump trend due to an interplay between the factors of traffic heterogeneity and shockwaves. Reduced visibility of the single probe does not proportionately increase the error. Multiple probes do not tend to increase accuracy significantly, which suggests that the data will be still useful even if probes are sparsely distributed. Finally, probes can measure the conditions of oncoming traffic more accurately than concurrent traffic. Further research is expected to consider more complex road networks and develop methods to improve the accuracy of moving array samples.

2019-11-11T00:00:00Z Carrion, Carlos Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21179 2026-04-22T03:32:50Z 2019-10-02T00:00:00Z

Over- and Under-Estimation of Travel Time on Commute Trips: GPS vs. Self-Reporting Carrion, Carlos; Levinson, David M. The underlying structure of road networks (e.g., circuity, relative discontinuity) contributes to the travel time perception of travelers. This study considers additional factors (e.g., arrival flexibility, access to traffic information) and tests nonlinearities linking perception of travel time. These factors are linked to four categories according to time perception research in psychology: temporal relevance, temporal uncertainty, and temporal expectancies; task complexity, absorption, and attentional deployment; and affective elements. This study estimates the relationship on data collected from commuters recruited from a previous GPS-based study in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region consisting of trips from home to work and back. For these work trips, the subjects’ self-reported travel times and the subjects’ travel times measured by GPS devices were collected. The results indicate that nonlinearities are present for road network attributes. Furthermore, the additional factors (e.g., arrival flexibility, access to traffic information) influence the travel time perception of travelers.

2019-10-02T00:00:00Z Huang, Jeanne Levinson, David M. Wang, Jiaoe Jin, Haitao https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21180 2026-04-22T03:32:43Z 2019-10-02T00:00:00Z

Job-worker spatial dynamics in Beijing: Insights from Smart Card Data. Huang, Jeanne; Levinson, David M.; Wang, Jiaoe; Jin, Haitao As a megacity, Beijing has experienced traffic congestion, unaffordable housing issues and jobs-housing im- balance. Recent decades have seen policies and projects aiming at decentralizing urban structure and job-worker patterns, such as subway network expansion, the suburbanization of housing and firms. But it is unclear whether these changes produced a more balanced spatial configuration of jobs and workers. To answer this question, this paper evaluated the ratio of jobs to workers from Smart Card Data at the transit station level and offered a longitudinal study for regular transit commuters. The method identifies the most preferred station around each commuter's workpalce and home location from individual smart datasets according to their travel regularity, then the amounts of jobs and workers around each station are estimated. A year-to-year evolution of job to worker ratios at the station level is conducted. We classify general cases of steepening and flattening job-worker dynamics, and they can be used in the study of other cities. The paper finds that (1) only temporary balance appears around a few stations; (2) job-worker ratios tend to be steepening rather than flattening, influencing commute patterns; (3) the polycentric configuration of Beijing can be seen from the spatial pattern of job centers identified.

2019-10-02T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David M. Owen, Andrew https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21186 2026-04-22T03:34:37Z 2019-10-03T00:00:00Z

Commute Mode Share and Access to Jobs across US Metropolitan Areas Wu, Hao; Levinson, David M.; Owen, Andrew How much of the variation in transit mode share is attributable to accessibility is not well understood, despite its significant policy implications. It is hypothesized that better transit accessibility leads to higher transit mode share. This paper explains block group level transit mode share using transit accessibility in a logistic model for 48 major US metropolitan areas. Transit accessibility alone explains much of the variation in transit mode share for all 48 regions despite their geographical differences (adjusted R2 0.61, potential accessibility); models for individual cities have stable and interpretable parameters for transit accessibility. The models better explain mode share in cities with higher person weighted transit accessibility and larger populations; an adjusted R2 of 0.76 is achieved for New York City with transit accessibility as the only explanatory variable. Additional automobile accessibility and income variables modestly improve model fit. Time-decay functions fitted to accessibility measures better explain mode choice than the isochrone accessibility, and suggest the catchment area affecting transit mode choice to be within 35 minutes. This work contributes to the understanding of transit mode share by solidifying its link with accessibility, which is determined by the structure of the transport network and land development.

2019-10-03T00:00:00Z Lahoorpoor, Bahman Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/21173 2026-04-22T03:32:49Z 2019-10-02T00:00:00Z

Catchment if you can: The effect of station entrance and exit locations on accessibility (journal preprint) Lahoorpoor, Bahman; Levinson, David M. The success of passenger railway systems depends on their ridership and thus the population they serve. A mechanism to increase ridership is to expose the existing system to more people by reconfiguring the station itself, for instance by adding extra entrance and exit gates to shorten the walking distance from a trip’s origin or its final destination. Gates are key nodes giving pedestrians access from street network to boarding/alighting facilities and vice verse. Stations and platforms are places not points, passengers may spend up to 6 minutes a trip walking between platforms and the end of the station nearest their origin or destination. This study systematically evaluates the accessibility of train stations and the effect of constructing an additional ‘far-side’ gate at stations with a single ‘near-side’ entrance. A three-step approach is defined to generate an isochrone as the catchment area for any transport node. Results indicate that stations with a single gate along their platforms (usually on one end of them) have the potential to increase the accessibility to jobs and population by around 10% on average. Due to the walking network and land use characteristics, some stations will benefit more significantly by retrofitting a new gate. Also, four linear regression models are developed to illustrate the effect of expanded accessibility on the number of entries and exits at each station for two peak periods. Then, stations are ranked based on their added ridership, which can help authorities to prioritize the development and allocating resources.

2019-10-02T00:00:00Z Cui, Mengying Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/20806 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2019-07-29T00:00:00Z

Primal and Dual Access Cui, Mengying; Levinson, David M. Accessibility, measuring the ease of reaching potential destinations, is increasingly being considered as an effective indicator to evaluate the performance of transport and land use interactions. Primal accessibility, a generalization of the first accessibility formulation proposed by Hansen (1959), has been widely used in many studies and demonstrated to be a reliable tool for project, program, and policy evaluation. The dual of accessibility, measuring the time required to reach a given number of opportunities, is less often considered but can be used for optimization in location-covering type problems. This paper, hence, clarifies the definitions of primal and dual access, and applies both measures to the Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan area for auto and transit to demonstrate their practicality as a metropolitan-level measurement. We explore the correlations and differences between the primal and dual access to better understand the relative strengths of the measures. It is found that, as with primal accessibility, dual accessibility is an efficient approach to evaluate accessibility, which is straightforward to calculate and to explain to policy-makers and the public.

2019-07-29T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/20509 2026-04-22T03:32:47Z 2019-06-07T00:00:00Z

Access Across Australia Wu, Hao; Levinson, David M. This report measures accessibility, the ease of reaching valued destinations, for 8 major Australian cities, covering around 70% of resident workers and employment opportunities nationally. Accessibility, measured as the cumulative number of opportunities reachable within travel time thresholds, to both jobs and to workers’ residences are measured. This report includes accessibility by four modes of transport: automobile, transit, walking, and cycling, and compares accessibility between cities, across modes, and for the job-to-labor balance. The effects of traffic congestion on automobile travel times and the walking and transfer elements of the transit mode are reflected in the accessibility measures. The accessibility measurements capture the combined effect of land use and transport infrastructure. Automobile has higher accessibility than transit, walking, or cycling. Sydney and Melbourne have the highest regional job and resident worker numbers, and the best overall automobile accessibility among Australian cities; but Perth has the greatest number of jobs and workers reachable by automobile within 30 minutes during the morning peak period. Melbourne has modestly better automobile accessibility than Sydney. Transit accessibility remains at a significant disadvantage compared to automobile, reaching between 12% to 18% of the amount of urban opportunities accessible by automobile under a 30 minutes threshold. Transit accessibility tends to be higher in city centers, and low in other places. The disparity between transit and automobile accessibility peaks at between 20 to 30 minutes travel time threshold, which overlaps, with the latent one-way ‘travel time budget’. Sydney and Melbourne have the best transit accessibility among Australian cities, followed by Perth and Brisbane. This report identifies cycling as a viable option for improving accessibility. Assuming cyclists are willing to ride on-street, more opportunities can be reached by cycling than by transit within 30 minutes in all 8 cities. Within 30 minutes, cycling can reach about twice as many jobs as transit in all 8 Australian cities, and around one-third of job opportunities reachable by automobile (excluding Perth, which is 16%). Sydney, Melbourne have the highest walking and cycling accessibility. City centers are characterized by superior accessibility to both jobs and workers, higher jobs-to-workers ratios, and less pronounced advantage in automobile accessibility compared to other modes. Accessibility measurements are made at the Statistical Area 2 level for 8 am trip departure time. City level accessibility measures are produced as a population-weighted average to best represent the experience of the working population in general. Maps of 30-minute accessibility are included in this report, reflecting the latent travel time budget, and the vision of the 30-minute city.

2019-06-07T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. Lahoorpoor, Bahman https://hdl.handle.net/2123/20286 2026-04-22T03:34:32Z 2019-04-10T00:00:00Z

Catchment if you can: The effect of station entrance and exit locations on accessibility Levinson, David M.; Lahoorpoor, Bahman The success of passenger railway systems depends on their ridership and thus the population they serve. An alternative mechanism to increase ridership is to expose the existing system to more people. One approach to do this is reconfiguring the station itself by adding extra entrance and exit gates to shorten the walking distance from a trip’s origin or its final destination. Gates are key nodes giving pedestrians access from street network to boarding/alighting facilities and vice verse. Stations are not points, passengers may spend up to 6 minutes a trip walking between platforms and the end of the station nearest their origin or destination. This study aimed to systematically evaluate the accessibility of train stations and the effect of constructing an additional ‘far-side’ gate at stations with a single ‘near-side’ entrance. A three-step approach is defined to generate an isochrone as the catchment area for any transport node. Results indicate that, stations with single gate along their platforms (usually on one end of them) have the potential to increase the accessibility to jobs and population by around 10% on average. Due to the walking network and land use characteristics, some stations will benefit more significantly by retrofitting a new gate. Also, four linear regression models are developed to illustrate the effect of expanded accessibility on the number of entries and exits at each station for two peak periods. Then, stations are ranked based on their added ridership, which can help authorities to prioritize the development and allocating resources.; The atlas of stations illustrates the accessibility before and after additional entrances are provided.

2019-04-10T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. Krizek, Kevin J. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18972 2026-04-22T03:32:49Z 2017-10-01T00:00:00Z

The End of Traffic and the Future of Access: A Roadmap to the New Transport Landscape Levinson, David M.; Krizek, Kevin J. In most industrialized countries, car travel per person has peaked and the automobile regime is showing considering signs of instability. As cities across the globe venture to find the best ways to allow people to get around amidst technological and other changes, many forces are taking hold — all of which suggest a new transport landscape. Our roadmap describes why this landscape is taking shape and prescribes policies informed by contextual awareness, clear thinking, and flexibility.

2017-10-01T00:00:00Z Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18973 2026-04-28T03:07:53Z 2017-09-01T00:00:00Z

Spontaneous Access: Reflexions on Designing Cities and Transport Levinson, David M. The idea of the ‘spontaneous city,’ one that serves needs and wants in real-time, is a theme running through both the title and the text. How can we design cities and their networks that enable people to do what they want, when they want? What do we do everyday that hinders our freedom?

2017-09-01T00:00:00Z Borowski, Elisa Ermagun, Alireza Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18780 2026-04-22T03:32:51Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

DISPARITY OF ACCESS: VARIATIONS IN TRANSIT SERVICE BY RACE, ETHNICITY, INCOME, AND AUTO AVAILABILITY Borowski, Elisa; Ermagun, Alireza; Levinson, David M. This study explores the relationship between transit-based job accessibility and minority races and ethnicities, low- and middle-income households, and carless households at the block group level for the 50 largest by population metropolitan regions in the United States. A log-linear regression model is used to identify inequities in transit-based job accessibility across the US using data collected from the American Community Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Smart Location Database, and the Access Across America database. The intra-metropolitan analyses reveal that accessibility is unevenly distributed across block groups that have different densities of race and levels of income. The differences in accessibility are especially apparent where there are denser pockets with higher percentages of African Americans, Hispanics, low-income households, and zero-car households. The inter-metropolitan analyses show that accessibility is unevenly distributed across metropolitan regions across the US when considering various sociodemographic populations. Different metropolitan regions provide different levels of accessibility for all investigated sociodemographic categories, whether considering racial minorities, levels of income, or car ownership. The results may inform recommendations for equitable transport planning and policy-making.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Cui, Boer Boisjoly, Geneviève El-Geneidy, Ahmed Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18781 2026-04-22T03:32:48Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

Accessibility, equity, and the journey to work Cui, Boer; Boisjoly, Geneviève; El-Geneidy, Ahmed; Levinson, David M. Inequality in transport provision is an area of growing concern among transport professionals, as it results in low-income individuals travelling at lower speeds while covering smaller distances. Accessibility, the ease of reaching destinations, may hold the key in correcting these inequalities through providing a means to evaluate land use and transport interventions. This article examines the relationship between accessibility and commuting duration for low-income individuals, compared to the general population, in three major Canadian metropolitan regions, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver using multilevel mixed effects statistical models for car and public transport commuters separately. Accessibility measures are generated for jobs and workers both at the origin (home) and the destination (place of work) to account for the impact of competing labor and firms. Our models show that the impacts of accessibility on commuting duration are present and stronger for low-income individuals than for the general population, and the differences in impact are more visible for public transport commuters. The results suggest that low-income individuals have more to gain (in terms of reduced commute time) from increased accessibility to low-income jobs at the origin and to workers at the destination. Similarly, they also have more to lose from increased accessibility to low-income workers at the origin and to low- income jobs at the destination, which are proxies for increased competition. Policies targeting improvements in accessibility to jobs, especially low-income ones, by car and public transport while managing the presence of competition can serve to bridge the inequality gap that exists in commuting behavior.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Heymes, Capucine Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18777 2026-04-22T03:32:51Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

DOCKLESS IN SYDNEY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF BIKESHARING IN AUSTRALIA Heymes, Capucine; Levinson, David M. In mid-2017, dockless, (or stationless) bikesharing appeared on the streets of Sydney. The birth of dockless bikesharing, its evolution as well as its consequences, and use habits are studied with review of policies and field investigations. It is found that bicycle use in Sydney is less than hoped for, vandalism is high, regulations unfavourable, and thus, the conditions for successful bikesharing are not met.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Cui, Mengying Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18776 2026-04-22T03:32:51Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

Link-based Full Cost Analysis of Travel Cui, Mengying; Levinson, David M. This paper develops a link-based full cost model, which identifies the key cost components of travel, including both internal and external versions of cost, and gives a link-based cost estimate. The key cost components for travelers are categorized as time cost, emission cost, crash cost, user monetary cost, and infrastructure cost. Selecting the Minneapolis - St. Paul (Twin Cities) Metropolitan region as the study area, the estimates show that the average full cost of travel is $0.68/veh-km, in which the time and user monetary costs account for approximately 85% of the total. Except for the infrastructure cost, highways are more cost-effective than other surface road- ways considering all the other cost components, as well as the internal and full costs.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18778 2026-04-22T03:32:44Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

Optimum Stop Spacing for Accessibility Wu, Hao; Levinson, David M. This paper describes the connection between stop spacing and person-weighted acces- sibility for a transit route. Population distribution is assumed to be uniform along the line, but at each station, demand drops with distance from the station. The study reveals that neither short nor excessive stop spacings are efficient in providing accessi- bility. For the configuration of each transit route, an optimum stop spacing exists that maximizes accessibility. Parameters including transit vehicle acceleration, deceleration, top speed, dwell time, and pedestrian walking speed affect level of accessibility achiev- able, and differ in their effect on accessibility results. The findings provide an anchor of reference both for the planning of future transit systems, and for transit operators to make operational changes to system design parameters that improve accessibility in a cost-effective manner. The study technically justifies the "rule of thumb" in setting different stop spacings for metro, streetcars, and other different transit services. Differ- ent types of transit vary in their ability to provide accessibility, slower moving streetcar (tram) type urban rails are inherently disadvantaged in that respect. Thus the type of transit service to be built should be of particular concern, if the transit is to effectively serve its intended population.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Yokoo, Toshihiro Levinson, David M. Marasteanu, Mihai https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18773 2026-04-22T03:32:45Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

Pavement condition and crashes Yokoo, Toshihiro; Levinson, David M.; Marasteanu, Mihai Change in weather state (such as the freeze-thaw cycle) leads to distresses in pave- ment materials. It has been hypothesized that poor pavement quality reduces the ability of roads to drain and reduces the ability of vehicles to resist skidding, and is thus associated with more crashes. This paper combines GIS data on crashes with a separate GIS database to test the hypothesis. Poor road quality is associated with more property damage and injury crashes. The interaction of road quality and curves was surprising, indicating that good pavement quality on curves increased the fatal, injury, and property-damage crash rate.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Chaloux, Nick Boisjoly, Geneviève Grisé, Emily El-Geneidy, Ahmed Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18782 2026-04-22T03:32:48Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

I only get some satisfaction: Introducing satisfaction into measures of accessibility Chaloux, Nick; Boisjoly, Geneviève; Grisé, Emily; El-Geneidy, Ahmed; Levinson, David M. Improving accessibility is a goal pursued by many metropolitan regions to address a variety of objectives. Accessibility, or the ease of reaching destinations, is traditionally measured using observed travel time and has of yet not accounted for user satisfaction with these travel times. As trip satisfaction is a major component of the underlying psychology of travel, we introduce satisfaction into accessibility measures and demonstrate its viability for future use. To do so, we generate a new satisfaction-based measure of accessibility where the impedance functions are determined from the travel time data of satisfying trips gathered from the 2017/2018 McGill Transport Survey. This satisfaction-based measure is used to calculate accessibility to jobs by four modes (public transport, car, walking, and cycling) in the Montreal metropolitan region, with the results then compared to a standard gravity-based measure of accessibility. We then offer a dissatisfaction index where we combine the ratio between satisfaction-based and gravity-based accessibility measures with mode share data. This index highlights areas with potentially high proportions of dissatisfied commuters and where interventions for each mode could have the highest impacts on the quality of life of a given mode commuter. Such analysis is then combined with a vulnerability index to show the value of this measure in setting priorities for vulnerable groups. The study demonstrates the importance of including satisfaction in accessibility measures and allows for a more nuanced interpretation of the ease of access by researchers, planners, and policy-makers.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Yokoo, Toshihiro Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18774 2026-04-22T03:32:43Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

Measures of Speeding from a GPS-based Travel Behavior Survey Yokoo, Toshihiro; Levinson, David M. Objective: Lacking information about actual driving speed on most roads in the Minneapolis - St. Paul region, we determine car speeds using observations from a GPS-based travel survey. Speed of travel determines the likelihood of, and consequences of, collisions. We identify the road segments where speeding occurs. This paper then analyzes the relationship between road network structure, traveler characteristics, and speed- ing using GPS data collected from 152 individuals over a 7 day period as part of the Minneapolis - St. Paul Travel Behavior Inventory. Methods: To investigate the relationship, we employed an algorithm and process to match the GPS data with GIS databases accurately (1). Comparing actual travel speed from GPS data with posted speed limits, we measure where and when speeding occurs, and by whom. We posit that road network structure and demographics shape the decision to speed. Results: Speeding is widespread in both high speed limit zones (e.g. 60 mph (97 km/h)) and low speed limit zones (less than 25 mph (40 km/h)); in contrast, speeding is less common in the 30 - 35 mph (48-56 km/h) zones. The results suggest driving patterns depend on the road type. We also find that when there are many intersections on the road, the average link speed (and speeding) drops. Long links are conducive to speeding. Younger drivers, and more educated drivers also speed more, and speeding is higher in the evening. Conclusions: Road design and network structure affects the likelihood of speeding. Use of increasingly available GPS data allows more systematic empirical analysis of designs and topologies that are conducive to road safety.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Reynolds Walsh, Lexie Xian, Tingsen Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18775 2026-04-22T03:32:43Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

WALKING AND TALKING: THE EFFECT OF SMARTPHONE USE AND GROUP CONVERSATION ON PEDESTRIAN SPEED Reynolds Walsh, Lexie; Xian, Tingsen; Levinson, David M. By testing the walking speed of groups of pedestrians and of phone users, followers of groups and of phone users, and of people uninfluenced by phone users and groups, from different sites it could been seen that groups of people and phone users, and often followers of phone users, walk significantly slower than people uninfluenced by phone. In a narrow path people in groups and phone users not only slow themselves down but also slow the people behind. The rise of the smartphone correlates with a reduction in walking speed.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Wu, Hao Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18779 2026-04-22T03:32:43Z 2018-09-13T00:00:00Z

Effects of Timetable Change on Job Accessibility Wu, Hao; Levinson, David M. Accessibility is often not a performance measure for transit services. This study is conducted following the introduction of new timetables which intended to improve passenger throughput for Sydney’s transit services, but resulted in major delays ex- perienced by passengers thereafter. Accessibility at 30-minute travel threshold before and after the timetable change are calculated between 8 to 9 am, to measure accessi- bility benefits, if any, from the new timetable. The results show a lack of systematic improvement by the new table, and downgrade of accessibility on average. The overall person-weighted accessibility dropped by 3%, from 45,070 to 43,730, and 63.3% of the population’s access to jobs would be adversely affected after its implementation. This study advocates for the inclusion of accessibility metrics into transit performance mea- sures to connect with people who use transit.

2018-09-13T00:00:00Z Sharma, Sabal Levinson, David M. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/18274 2026-04-22T03:32:45Z 2017-09-01T00:00:00Z

Travel Cost and Dropout from Secondary Schools in Nepal Sharma, Sabal; Levinson, David M. The study relates the association between travel time to the lower secondary and secondary public schools of Nepal and the dropout grade before leaving secondary school using an ordered logit model. It is shown that as the travel time to the school increases, students are more likely to dropout from the school system in earlier grades. The results from this study will be useful to policymakers, especially from developing countries, as it places transport in the context of education.

2017-09-01T00:00:00Z