Identifying service bottlenecks in public bikesharing flow networks

Da Lei, Long Cheng, Pengfei Wang, Xuewu Chen and Lin Zhang

Journal of Transport Geography, 2024, vol. 116, issue C

Abstract: Service bottlenecks are a key barrier to building a resilient public transport system. In this paper, we propose a new approach to automatically extract the role of a station in dynamical public transport flow networks based on the emerging role discovery method in network science. The term “role” in this study refers to the distinctive position or function that a station plays within the public transport flow network. Using smart card data from Nanjing public bikesharing agencies, we first construct dynamical public transport flow networks with notions of dynamical graph and edge. We then develop a dynamical algorithm to recursively compute the structural flow characteristics of nodes in passenger flow networks. Non-negative Matrix Factorization is conducted to extract the role memberships from the derived structural feature matrix and interpret each role in terms of measurements with practical values. The network hubs and potential service bottlenecks are then identified based on their operating characteristics and dynamics. Furthermore, the day-to-day and within-day role dynamics of public transport stations over time are unveiled. The results contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between stations in the network, and the identification of roles provides insight for public transport agencies to improve service resilience.

Keywords: Resilient public transport; Role extraction; Smart card data; Network dynamics; Bikesharing flow patterns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692324000395

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:116:y:2024:i:c:s0966692324000395

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103830

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transport Geography is currently edited by Frank Witlox

More articles in Journal of Transport Geography from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().