Analysis of urban demand responsive transport in Helsinki metropolitan area: Case Kutsuplus

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Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Ask about the availability of the thesis by sending email to the Aalto University Learning Centre oppimiskeskus@aalto.fi

Authors

Date

2016-09-19

Department

Major/Subject

Managing Spatial Change, Urban Engineering

Mcode

ENG3036

Degree programme

Master's Programme in Tranportation and Environmental Engineering

Language

en

Pages

78+9

Series

Abstract

Public transport plays an important role in shaping the urban and social image of the cities. During the last decade major urban centers of the world are facing a number of the issues due to the challenge of urbanization. More and more people are migrating to cities due to the better employment opportunities and living facilities, moreover the population of the cities is also growing which demands effective and technologically advanced means of sustainable mobility infrastructure which can cope with the rising figure of private car ownership which has become a potential reason of traffic congestion and rise in greenhouse gases. The population of Helsinki Metropolitan Area is also growing and it is estimated that it will get double by 2050 of the current figure. These challenges need to be solved with the advancement made in information and communication technologies as well the growing research in the field of intelligent transport services. In order to translate those advancements in transport sector Helsinki regional Transport Authority piloted for the first time in the world large scale urban Demand Responsive Transport service called Kutsuplus which provided on demand transport service to the customer utilizing the latest routing and trip combining algorithms. It was aimed that the service level provided by Kutsuplus will firstly break the growing dependency on the use of personal car for making trips, secondly will help in tackling the environmental challenges and traffic congestion and thirdly will become a potential source of revenue for the agency. This study introduces us to the demand responsive transport and its previous role as well the latest advancement made during the last decades in provision of such transport services, moreover it also introduces us to the urban form, traffic development and transport infrastructure of Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The main research objective of this thesis focuses on the detail analysis of the Kutsuplus pilot project which continued during 2012-2015 in HMA. The survey conducted as a part of research methodology forms the basic part of this study which provides a deep insight into experiences regarding Kutsuplus from the user of the service, non-user and users who discontinued. Moreover, it also identifies the respondent’s car travel frequency, taxi usage and the most common trip purpose for which they used this service. This study also investigates the service acceptance and performance based on user experiences, along with the potential operational reasons and shortcomings in policy level practices which contributed to low ridership and revenue despite high population and employment densities, high operational cost and finally the shutdown of the service. Lessons are drawn and conclusions are made on the basis of the survey results, operational statistics from the Kutsuplus service and guidelines in context of earlier case studies regarding demand responsive services.

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Supervisor

Mladenovic, Milos

Thesis advisor

Mladenovic, Milos

Keywords

demand responsive transport, public transport, DRT, Kutsuplus, HMA, HSL

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Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201609224211

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[dipl] Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu / ENG