Metro passengers' route choice model and its application considering perceived transfer threshold.

Area of Science:

• Transportation Science
• Urban Planning
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Rapid expansion of metro networks increases route complexity.
• Passenger flow assignment and route choice behavior are challenging for operation management.
• Existing models may not fully capture passenger transfer preferences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze passenger route choice preferences in complex metro systems.
• To incorporate a "perceived transfer threshold" into utility functions.
• To demonstrate the application of route choice analysis for personalized route planning.

Main Methods:

• Adoption of a path-sized logit model.
• Inclusion of in-vehicle time, number of transfers, and transfer time in the utility function.
• Definition and integration of a "perceived transfer threshold" to quantify transfer penalties.
• Calibration of the model using revealed preference data from Guangzhou Metro.

Main Results:

• The calibrated model identified passenger route choice preferences.
• Analysis revealed appropriate perceived transfer threshold values.
• The "perceived transfer threshold" significantly improved the model's explanatory power.
• Personalized route planning demonstrated engineering practicability.

Conclusions:

• The path-sized logit model with a perceived transfer threshold enhances understanding of passenger behavior.
• Incorporating perceived transfer penalties improves route choice modeling accuracy.
• Personalized route planning effectively addresses diverse passenger travel demands in metro systems.