Post-COVID Ridership Recovery Update: Empirical Data

The "Work from Home Movement", and other effects from the Spring 2020 outbreak, are still evident in US transit ridership patterns.   As of September 2022, overall ridership was roughly 2/3 of September 2019.   

Nationwide, local bus services are back to 70% patronage from 3 years earlier.   Compared with local bus services, all other modes have recovered a larger fraction of their ridership since the Spring of 2020 but are all carrying a smaller proportion of their 2019 ridership.  

The Marriage of Automated Metros and Self-Driving Trains

Automated Metro Operations: 

Opportunities, Challenges and Conversions

As we emerge from the pandemic and embrace the "new normal", urban transportation faces a number of new challenges and opportunities related to efficiency, economy, technology and changing travel behaviors.

As we adapt and upgrade our cities, one proven technological opportunity to reduce the costs of providing high capacity transit systems while also dramatically improving service quality can be considered.  The coordination of existing, but underutilized, unattended metro train operations and the emerging prospect of self-driving trains offer the opportunity improve service while reducing operating costs.

The presentation on January 9th will cover the proliferation of unattended train systems around the world, the conversion of legacy systems to unattended operation and the emerging opportunity to apply self-driving car autonomous technology to the rapid transit environment.  

I hope you can attend. 

If not, CLICK HERE for a copy of the presentation.  

102nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board
Committee on Rail Rolling Stock and Motive Power

Monday, January 9, 2023, 15:45 – 17:30 ET
Capitol Room (M4) Marriott Marquis Hotel Washington DC

David O. Nelson, Senior Consultant, 

Jacobs Engineering, 120 Saint James Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110

david.nelson@jacobs.com  +1 978 360 0449

Announcing the Annual Meeting of the Commuter Rail Subcommittee

2023 Annual Meeting of TRB's Commuter Rail Subcommittee

Tuesday, January 10, 2023. 15:45 - 17:30
Mint Room (M4), Marriott Marquis Hotel,

Washington DC. 

All are Welcome!  

Be prepared to discuss how the commuter railroad you know best is responding to the new "Work from Home" travel market. 

Click Here for Preliminary Agenda

Concerning the Post-2020 Commuter Railway

The public health crisis of 2020 and beyond had dramatic effects on our society and culture.

Some aspects of our collective culture will be changed forever.  One public service that may never be the same is the commuter railways that have carried office workers from their suburban homes to their downtown workplaces for more than century.  

Responding to the social distancing imperatives required by public health concerns, office workers and their employers exploited the latest commerically available tools for telecommunication to establish a new mode of "Working From Home".  WFH turned out to be big success that will likely endure long after the other painful memories of the pandemic eventually fade.  

Work from Home will likely change urban travel forever with dramatic effects on peak demand for commuter rail transit service to the urban core.   Click here for more thoughts on this transformative change.  

Innovative Service Planning Approaches for Urban Rail Transit Systems

 I’ll be presiding over an online poster session at the 100^th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board on Thursday, Jan 28: 2:30 PM  - 4:00 PM (Session 1402)

 Poster Presentations will cover a myriad of topics:

 Service Optimization of Urban Rail Transit Line with Short-turn and Express/ Local Services

Tao Feng, Qiyuan Peng, Dian Wang, Siyu Tao of Southwest Jiaotong University

 

Assessing the Bus Bridging Effectiveness on the Operational Resilience of the Subway Service in Toronto

Alaa Itani andAmer Shalaby of University of Toronto

 

Research on Critical Stations Identification for Operation of Urban Rail Transit Network

Jinyi Chen and Tiezhu Li of Southeast University and Yong Li and Wei Zheng of Nanjing Subway Operation Co.LTD

 

Ridership and human mobility of metro system under the typhoon weather event: A case study in Fuzhou, China

Yuchen Lin, Shixiong Jiang, Dewang Chen, of Fuzhou University

 

Multi-Objective Optimization for Skip-Stop Strategy Based on Smartcard Data Considering Total Travel Time and Equity

Sang-Wook Han, Eun Hak Lee, Dong-Kyu Kim of Seoul National University

 

A Method to Minimize Transfer Waiting Time on Urban Rail Trip Considering Rail Stopping Time Extension

Jumei Zhu, Xiucheng Guo, Junlan Chen, and Shuang Li of Southeast University

 

Network Design and Line Planning on Multi-modal Rail Transit Network Within Metropolitan Area

Xinmei Chen, Qiyuan Peng, and Siyu Tao of Southwest Jiaotong University

Virginie Lurkin, Technische Universiteit, Eindhoven

 

Stop-skipping Strategy Based on Stop-to-stop Dependent Demand in Urban Subway Lines

Mohammadjavad Javadinasr, Amir Bahador Parsa, and Abolfazl Mohammadian of University of Illinois, Chicago.   Yousef Shafahi, Sharif University of Technology

 

Skip-stop Train Service Stop Scheme In Urban Rail Transit Based On Passengers' Reverse Transfer

Sijia Zhang, Jiannan Mao, Yuting Chen, Hao Huang, and Lan Liu of Southwest Jiaotong University

Towards the Autonomous LRV

This Friday January 15, 2021 at 10:00 am EST  I'll be presenting the preliminary findings of research on the state of the industry and prospects for self-driving autonomous light rail vehicles.

You can join the presentation online at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board: Standing Committee on Urban Rail Transit Systems

Click here to preview the presentation

1st Virtual Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board

 The TRB 100th Annual Meeting will be conducted as a virtual event over a series of dates throughout January 2021

The decision to go virtual was made out of concern for the health and safety of all meeting attendees, in light of the  coronavirus disease (COVID-19). 

The Commuter Rail Subcommittee Meeting will be held Thursday January 14, 2021 | 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm (EST) 

For more details on the Commuter Rail Subcommittee meeting:  CLICK HERE