ABSTRACT
At the
beginning of the twentieth century, the United States was leading in the public
transit sector, but following World War II, private automobiles became more
affordable and gained popularity. Transportation infrastructure investments
that increased road capacity further facilitated the increase in automobile use
at the expense of reduced public transit ridership. With the increase of
dependency on automobiles and the continuing growth of private automobile
ownership and use, various problems became major challenges in big cities of
USA. These include traffic congestion, air pollution, road and parking
infrastructure costs, energy consumption, traffic safety, fewer mobility
options for the non-drivers, and a decline in the image and use of public
transit. This study uses a medium sized city, Birmingham as a case study to
investigate the potential of public transit to reduce automobile trips and in
turn improve the overall performance of the road network by addressing the
abovementioned challenges. An agent-based simulation model was developed for
the Birmingham metropolitan region using the Multi-agent Transport Simulation
(MATSim) platform. Three scenarios were considered with gradually increased
transit ridership to identify the benefits of increased public transit. Traffic
volume, network average speed, and travel times were used as performance
measures for the evaluation of the designated scenarios. Results suggest that
modal shifts toward public transit and reduction in travel demand for an automobile
can result in improvements in speed and travel time for all users. Therefore,
investments for improving transit quality and frequency of service, as well as
campaigns to improve the image of public transit and make it a mode of choice
for transportation users can increase transit ridership and, in turn, improve
network operations, thus are deemed worthy for medium sized cities.