Urban Rail Transit

In early 2019 Bangkok metro network included five lines operating on approx. 100 km of track in the city. The transport Master plan for the city sets an ambitious target of approx. 500 km of metro network by 2030. This will be achieved by expanding the existing and developing new metro lines in close collaboration between the governmental organisations and the private sector. However, in early stages of implementation of the expansion plan it was observed that metro lines operated by different companies use different strategies for station naming as well as station coding. This practice caused confusion as to which strategy to apply to the new lines. Therefore, this project aimed at looking into station naming strategies applied in other major cities in Asia and beyond in order to suggest practical solutions to all parties involved. In addition, an online survey was conducted in 2018, in which Bangkokians were asked to state their metro station names preferences and list problems they face with the existing names. Based on analysis of the literature review and survey data a set of tools was developed to facilitate a new strategy for station naming. These tools include: principles for metro station naming and a pyramid of station names categories. Also, potential name changes to four key metro interchanges are suggested. These findings are expected to be taken into account by the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning when facilitating expansion of the metro network in Bangkok in the future. Moreover, some of these tools could be used by other cities expanding or developing metro networks in Asia and beyond, but first they would have to be adjusted to a local context.

The provision of Jakarta MRT is expected to reduce congestion in Jakarta by shifting motorists to the MRT. Neverthless, shifting drivers to the MRT is much more complex since the process of decision-making involves various technical and social aspects. A comprehensive study of decision making was undertaken to see drivers’ response towards Jakarta MRT development. Hence, the research aim is to examine the competitive level of Jakarta MRT in shifting motorists to the MRT. The data collected via a questionnaire from residents of Jakarta is divided into two groups: Private Vehicle Ownership (PVO) and Private Vehicle Non-Ownership (PVNO). The results indicated that the MRT becomes a preferred transport mode for both groups, where the shortest travel time becomes the greatest reason. Even though the MRT has waiting and walking time as parts of effort, and private vehicles appear to be superior in this occasion that requires less effort, the respondents still consider the shortest travel time as the most important parameter. However, 45% of PVO’s respondents still prefer choosing a motorcycle or a car to MRT. Shifting motorists to use the MRT requires a lot of attentions in terms of reliability, cost, and security. The other factors such as connectivity, headway, comfort, and cleanliness are also valued as important for the MRT development in the future.

A safety culture is an organisational culture, which places a high level of importance on safety beliefs, values and attitudes and these are shared by the majority of people within the company or workplace. This paper discusses the complexity of the safety culture approach in the railway maintenance environment. The aim of the paper is to better understand the rail safety culture from a developing country’s perspective in order to advise how theory and practice could be integrated to improve it. The research explores factors that influence the relationship between safety culture and safety behaviour and examines differences in perceptions of safety culture within three metro operators in Bangkok, capital city of Thailand. Results of an online survey completed by the total of 97 representatives of the three companies show some differences in their sub-samples’ characteristics, in terms of age and years of service, as well as in the way safety culture is perceived by employees involved in metro maintenance supervisory tasks. Overall, the study shows that training and supervision culture within companies scores highest while management commitment issues score lowest, on average. However, the scores are still high with all being between 70 and 90% positive range. Also, across four out of five different safety culture issues discussed, order of responses from highest to lowest is similar for the three companies, where one company is always at the top and the other always at the bottom. This shows that responses are consistent and highlight overall perception of safety culture within each company. Specific outcomes of the study and recommendations are widely applicable to any safety critical environment, but especially railways in developing countries.

This study has the main objective to analyze the effect of fare reduction on passenger travel behavior. A questionnaire has been used as a tool to analyze the travel characteristics and factors that motivate passengers to shift travelling time. Also, the amount of time that travelers are able and willing to change in Bangkok has been investigated and analyze from the questionnaire. The population are the Airport Rail Link (ARL) passenger in Thailand. The sampling size is 740 passengers using Taro Yamane formula with the 97.5% confident level. The distribution of questionnaires is both onsite and online surveys. The Binary Logit Model was using to analyze. The data has been analyzed by the STATA program. The results showed that the passenger who are older, higher income, higher level of education degree are not likely to change their travel times compare with the lower groups. For the factors that motivate them to shift time, the findings suggested that the rate of discount, length of time shift, and the travelling distance have a significant effect at 0.01. The Binary Logit Model analysis found that the shift time of 1 h with the satisfaction rate of discount between 8.40–19.20 baht in the morning and in the evening with 6.60–12.60 baht are the times that people are able and willing to change for a given discount. The study results can be used with other policies to give discount rates to passengers who are willing to shift their travel times. This will help at least to solve the overcrowding problem during the rush hours at ARL stations.

With a large number of people all over the world, the transportation modes of choice for public to travel at the same time within urban areas include buses, trains, trams, boats, and mass rapid transit. This research uses the word “Metro” to represent the mass rapid transit systems which are electric railway systems provided on designated lines between stations in Bangkok Metropolitan region in Thailand. Currently, there are 5 lines in operation including the BTS green line, BTS light green line, MRT blue line, MRT purple line and ARL. Interestingly, the metro lines are operated by different operators under different contracts and requirements. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for the Ministry of Transport to monitor the operations of each operator and compare the performance of each metro line. The objectives of this research are to identify the appropriate key performance indicators to monitor each operator’s performance and to suggest avenues for performance improvements. Extensive literature review analysis and focus discussion groups are among the research method used in this study. The main finding from this study is a consensus of six dimensions for measuring metro performance including “Transport volume”, “Punctuality”, “Reliability”, “Availability”, “Resource Utilization”, and “Customer satisfaction”.

This paper provides an evaluation of the socio-economic impacts of the metro network expansion on the West Midlands. The principal municipalities of this English region are already involved in the metro service, but the Midland Metro Alliance is aiming to extend the service to more towns and suburbs in the region. The metro network expansion project has been segmented, analysed and explored using a variant of the classic decision-making matrix, which enabled the assessment of the values of 8 factors responsible for the social and economic development of the West Midlands within the metro network extension itself. The analysis contains both quantitative and qualitative data. A forecasting activity intending to extend the data gathered during the socio-economic impact assessment, considering a 22-year medium-term horizon is organised. The activity has been undertaken using both proper software and different data analysis functions in order to project the socio-economic impact of the metro extension in the West Midlands.

Investment in rail projects in ASEAN (Association of South East Nations) will increase mobility for local populations and improve access to education, work and social development. In Thailand, multinational companies are part of this expansion. Their quest to hire local employees identifies education and training must consider employability or ‘soft’ skills, and work skill development that leads to sustainable career pathways. While the Thai government has identified a qualifications framework and 13 professional qualifications for the rail industry, employability skills or ‘soft’ provide graduates with a balance of talents to ensure they stay in jobs. Employability skills, ‘soft’ or work skills, are less well defined in rail qualifications. Our paper explores qualifications frameworks, qualifications in TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) and Higher Education and professional recognition processes in Thailand with commentary from a global consulting firm based in Bangkok.

The railway-track inspection system for track maintenance being developed in this research project consisted of 2 sub-systems, namely (1) Railway-track Locomotion sub-system, consuming electric energy to propel itself along the track in the inspection operation, with light gross weight, operated by one person, and (2) Railway-track Inspection and Data Recording sub-system with high-speed and high-resolution image capturing capability to suit the requirements of railway-track inspectors’ field operations. The 2 parts were researched, designed and developed such that the railway-track inspection system had simple construction and operation, and could be built with locally available supplied parts and equipments, leading to low manufacturing costs. A prototype of the system was built and tested on a mock-up test track simulating a real operation. The test results were used for later improvements of the system to yield an appropriate performance for real railway-track operation. The prototype had been planned to be tested on a real track in a real field operation in a near future. This developed system had been expected to put into real inspection and maintenance service of the railway operators to help ensuring safe tracks for railway passengers safety and comfort.

Retail accessibility refers to the attractiveness of place especially in the transport hub that serves a number of passengers each day. Retail activities are crucial for providing a variety of space utilizations which gives more options to the transport hub’s users. A change of Spatio-temporal accessibility needs to be analyzed in order to identify the spatial accessibility potential in transport hubs where the density of people depends on the activity and the time of the day. In this paper, the study presents a new approach to measure competition factors of accessibility by emphasizing centrality analysis tools that help to simulate potential demand as well as implement the reverse proportional of conventional competition factors accessibility measures for determining the level of competition factors accessibility of retail activities. The results illustrated the Spatio-temporal accessibility performance of each type of retailer in the Hakata station. The consequent impacts regarding infrastructure efficiency, circulation network, and the time temporal in the day affects the accessibility and the way people perceive the activity’s attractiveness. This study could help decision-makers identifying the dynamic of the attractiveness of spatial retail activity throughout the day for assisting in their spatial planning work.

Bangkok and its vicinity encounter traffic problems and air pollution that has been aggravating its situation due to traffic jams and high-density buildings in urban areas. Due to the previous development plan, the area is not aligned with the needs of area development particularly the accessibility problem. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish the area around the station of 500 m from the centroid of each station. The design factors which were considered in this study include; design, diversity, density, destination and accessibility. The classification of destination in the different stations was performed by using statistical analysis to distinguish the group of stations by using Cluster analysis. The average of all cases was compared among all pairs and analyzed from a Dendrogram. The result was classified into six groups which represented the main activity of the residential area, the mixed-use area, commercial area, recreation area, central area, and the government center. It is an approach to the development around station areas following their context to alleviate traffic congestion with reducing air pollution to achieve sustainable development and promote activities surrounding transit stations.

The expansion of subway networks can stimulate changes of accessibility of surrounding communities. The plan of future a network needs to be evaluated to examine the effect on existing networks and the accessibility of surrounding communities in order to prepare them for the changes of spatial physical dynamics. This research focused on the plan of a new subway station in the Japanese city of Fukuoka. The new station will be located in a prime site of the city and aims to link the old and new CBDs of Fukuoka city (Tenjin station district and Hakata station district). This methodology was introduced for measuring the changes of accessibility in order to indicate how much such plans could potentially benefit surrounding buildings. In this study, 12,237 buildings in the subject area including four major usages of Public Service, Mixed Use, Residential and Commercial were considered in the analysis, which uses a Reach Index to simulate the changes of accessibility between before and after operation of new subway stations. The results can be used to compare how expanding subway accessibility is associated with surrounding buildings. The changing of service area territories indicates the influence that a new subway station has on transportation networks.

Important information for passengers using mass transportation in a metropolitan city is the public transport schedule. People can plan their trips and estimate the travel time to their work place or to meeting locations. Currently, people in Bangkok can know the train arrival time when they reach the train platform. This is not convenient for passengers. The train platforms are crowded since passengers do not know the train arrival time of each platform. The objectives of this research are to (i) design the architecture to develop the system for exchanging information between the third-party users and the train telegram system, (ii) design the data standard for exchanging the train approach information among train telegram systems, (iii) implement the system as API web services that can serve third-party users to gain information about trains approaching each platform in real time.

Railway network operations are vulnerable to unplanned events such as failures of network components and natural disasters. These events normally cause timetable disruption, which might lead to serious impacts on both passengers and freights in the network. This paper presents a railway disruption management model that can be applied to assess and compare the efficiency of short-turning strategies implemented to solve an unplanned-track blockage situation. The model is constructed based on a stochastic-discrete event simulation concept. The application of the proposed model is demonstrated using the urban railway network in the UK. The results of the computational experiments illustrate that the proposed model is a useful tool to support a decision-making process to solve a track blockage situation in the real world.

A train rescheduling system using Timed Coloured Petri Nets is proposed. Traffic in a single track area named, “Chumphorn” is modelled and analysed. This area is selected because of its high traffic density. Even with a small traffic disruption in this area, the consecutive delays can be severely propagated. Although Timed Coloured Petri Net (TCPN) formalism is a natural choice to model a train scheduling problem, we rarely see TCPN used in real world practice. We envisage that there are two problems. First, interacting with the TCPN model requires programming skills. Second, analysis of the traffic in a large railway network often encounters state explosion. This paper suggests the solutions to these problems.

The train virtual coupling system can be considered as an alternative control system introduced for increasing rail line capacity. The separation distance between consecutive trains is theoretically less compared to the other controls. However, the velocity of a following train may fluctuate significantly due to frequent changes of acceleration rate. Moreover, the separation distance between trains may possibly be lower than the minimum safe distance resulting in unsafe situations. In this paper, approaches for controlling the movement of following trains are introduced. The simulated results demonstrate that trains can proceed safely in that the actual separation distance between trains is not less than the critical safe distance. The trains have also to be driven smoothly, in that the following train is catching up the leading train with a constant velocity and has been platooned with the leading train where the velocity and the distance separating it from the leading train has been maintained. The capacity can be controlled by the range of safe distance, which ensures that the gap between trains is in the range of safe distance. In addition, the acceleration and deceleration rates of the train are realistic. The rates are limited to realistic acceleration and braking capabilities.

This paper presents movement planning of a mass transit system between two stations with the use of Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique to minimize total energy consumption and total energy loss during the journey with appropriate weighting factors. The train movement is based on a sequence of four modes of operation, i.e., accelerating, constant speed or cruising, coasting, and braking modes. The train speed profile is genetically optimized by controlling the acceleration, the deceleration, and the location of coasting point. In this study, the investigation was carried out with a mass transit section between two station platforms with the service distance of 2 km, the variation of track gradient, and the maximum speed of 80 km/h. The results demonstrated that when compared with the use of GA-based single-objective functions, solving such a problem by using a GA-based multi-objective function can reduce the overall energy consumption (0.14% max) and total energy loss (3.53% max) while still being able to maintain the desired operation speed performance.

Permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) as a railway traction system has begun to be introduced in some commuter lines. In comparison with the common induction motor (IM), PMSM has different loss characteristics. Namely, during coasting, the production of iron loss still exists due to the rotating permanent magnet which increases energy consumption. Conventionally, no traction energy is consumed during coasting and thus, coasting is often exploited to configure optimal train speed profile. However, this feature might not be applied in PMSM. In this paper, the optimal train speed profile for PMSM is configured with dynamic programming (DP). To include the effect of coasting, the train energy consumption is modeled using the Maximum Torque Per Ampere (MTPA) control method. The result shows that the energy is consumed during coasting due to d-axis current flowing to the motor to suppress the back-emf. Moreover, the regenerative braking can achieve an efficiency of more than 88%. In addition, the optimal train speed profile for PMSM utilizes less coasting, and during braking, maximum deceleration is utilized more compared to the conventional model.