Congestion Management with Reservation Service in a Home-Subway Station Commuting Scenario

Abstract

Subway provides a sustainable way to meet the increasing commuting demand. This study proposes using reservation service for congestion management in a home-subway station commuting scenario, with reserved channels set for the implementation of reservation service. Passengers who opt for the reservation service need to reserve online in advance. The reservation service from home to the subway station is expected to reduce passengers’ travel costs, and the reservation service at the station entrance is expected to reduce passengers’ queuing costs. A bottleneck model is proposed to approach the congestion management problem in the given home-subway station commuting scenario. Impact analyses are presented with the settings of reserved and unreserved channels to operate independently or be shared by reserved and unreserved passengers when there is a capacity surplus. The influence of travel time uncertainty from home to the station on the commuting system is further discussed. Results indicate that the travel time uncertainty influences passengers’ departure time, queuing time, and travel service choice. Passengers with a farther distance from home to the station prefer reservation service to realize reliable travel. From reduced total system cost and reduced queuing cost perspectives, a shared channel usage setting at the station entrance when there is a capacity surplus is more efficient. Conditions for implementing reservation services to reduce the total system cost are identified.

Keywords: home-subway station commuting travel, reservation service, traffic congestion, travel time uncertainty, bottleneck model