Yan D, Guo J, Liu Z, Huang W. A Novel Hybrid Evaluation Method for Transfer Efficiency Assessment between Rail Transit... DONGMEI YAN, Ph.D.1 Intermodal Transport E-mail: [email protected] Preliminary Communication JIANHUA GUO, Ph.D.1 Submitted: 12 May 2019 (Corresponding Author) Accepted: 14 Oct. 2019 E-mail: [email protected] ZHAO LIU, Ph.D. 1 E-mail: [email protected] WEI HUANG, Ph.D. 1 E-mail: [email protected] 1 Intelligent Transportation System Research Center Southeast University, Road of Southeast University 2, Nanjing, 211189, P. R. China A NOVEL HYBRID EVALUATION METHOD FOR TRANSFER EFFICIENCY ASSESSMENT BETWEEN RAIL TRANSIT AND PUBLIC BICYCLES ABSTRACT bicycles are faster than walking and more flexible This paper proposes a new hybrid evaluation method than other public transportation modes [3, 4]. Howev- including Improved Analytic Hierarchy Process (IAHP), er, transfer efficiency between rail transit and public Entropy Method (EM), and Grey Comprehensive Evalu- bicycles is definitely low. This may be because the ation Method (GCEM) to assess the transfer efficiency long transfer distance, the imperfect transfer signs, between rail transit and public bicycles. In particular, and the insufficient transfer facilities restrict the de- the IAHP method that replaces the nine-scale approach velopment of public transportation and reduce the with three-scale approach to naturally meet the consis- attractiveness of public transportation [5]. Thus, it tency requirements is applied to qualitatively calculate the weights of evaluation indices, the EM method is uti- is necessary to assess transfer efficiency between lized to calculate the weights of evaluation indices with rail transit and public bicycles to further identify the relatively high degrees of quantification, and the GCEM reasons for low transfer efficiency. method is used to calculate the transfer efficiency be- Although the rapid growth in the joint use of rail tween rail transit and public bicycles. In addition, a transit and public bicycles has been recognized, re- three-level evaluation-index system including target lev- search on the transfer efficiency evaluation between el, criteria level and index level is established. A numer- rail transit and public bicycles is extremely insuf- ical example is also provided to verify the feasibility of ficient [6]. Thus, the objective of this paper is to the proposed hybrid evaluation method and explore the develop a hybrid evaluation method that includes reasons for low transfer efficiency between rail transit Improved Analytic Hierarchy Process (IAHP), and public bicycles. Entropy Method (EM), and Grey Comprehensive Evaluation Method (GCEM) to assess the transfer KEY WORDS efficiency between rail transit and public bicycles. rail transit; public bicycles; transfer efficiency; analytic More specifically, the weights of indices are giv- hierarchy process; entropy method; grey comprehensive en by the IAHP and EM methods, and the GCEM evaluation method; method is used to calculate the transfer efficiency between rail transit and public bicycles. A numer- 1. INTRODUCTION ical example is provided to illustrate the feasibility Public bicycle-sharing system has become in- of the proposed hybrid evaluation method. creasingly popular in recent years [1]. The combined The organization of this paper is as follows. use of rail transit and public bicycles for one trip has Section 2 provides a brief overview of transfer effi- increased dramatically in many countries [2]. The ciency evaluation method. Section 3 establishes an increasing interest stems from the fact that public evaluation-index system for the transfer efficiency bicycles can help solve the problem of “the last assessment between rail transit and public bicycles. mile” of rail transit. As a supplement mode, public Section 4 develops a hybrid evaluation method to Promet – Traffic & Transportation, Vol. 32, 2020, No. 2, 279-289 279 Yan D, Guo J, Liu Z, Huang W. A Novel Hybrid Evaluation Method for Transfer Efficiency Assessment between Rail Transit... assess transfer efficiency between rail transit and and public bicycles? To the best of our knowledge, public bicycles. Section 5 provides a numerical ex- the results on this problem are rare, which remains ample based on real-world data from six transfer an interesting research topic. stations selected in Nanjing to verify the feasibility Obviously, the transfer efficiency between rail of the proposed hybrid evaluation method. Section transit and public bicycles has not been fully inves- 6 gives the conclusions of the paper. tigated. This research gap is the first motivation for this paper. In addition, it has been common practice 2. LITERATURE REVIEW in previous research to evaluate transfer efficien- cy between rail transit and public bicycles without There have been extensive investigations on explicit consideration of the combined use of sub- transfer efficiency evaluation. Chen and Chen [7] jective weight and objective weight. Tackling this employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) issue is the second motivation for this paper. Thus, to evaluate the transfer efficiency between inter- this paper proposes a novel hybrid evaluation meth- city rail and conventional public transit. Song et al. od to assess the transfer efficiency between rail tran- proposed an AHP method to evaluate transfer effi- sit and public bicycles by combining IAHP, EM and ciency between rail transportation modes [8]. Sun et GCEM. al. proposed a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to evaluate transfer efficiency of the urban public transportation terminal [9]. Sun et al. 3. ESTABLISHMENT OF EVALUATION constructed a structural equation model to evaluate INDEX SYSTEM transfer efficiency of rail transit P&R facilities [10]. The evaluation-index system is the basis of Cheng et al. presented a multi criteria/attribute de- transfer efficiency assessment between rail transit cision-making (MCDM/MADM) model for mea- and public bicycles. It is crucial to select representa- suring transfer efficiency between urban rail station tive evaluation indices so that each index is relative- and its feeding bus stops [11]. Xu et al. established ly independent and easy to quantify. A three-level a generalized cost function model to quantitatively evaluation-index system including objective lev- analyse transfer efficiency inside the transfer sta- el, criteria level and index level is established, as tion [12]. However, although there has been a large shown in Figure 1. number of studies on transfer efficiency evaluation, Average transfer time is the average time re- little research has been done on the transfer efficien- quired for the passengers to complete the entire cy evaluation between rail transit and public bicy- transfer process, including walking time, time of cles. For example, Guo and Wang applied the AHP ticket purchase, and waiting time. Here, the transfer approach to evaluate the transfer efficiency between process refers to the process of passengers getting rail transit and public bicycles [13]. off the public bicycle to taking the rail transit. This It should be noted that the above-mentioned index measures the fastness and compactness of the studies on the transfer efficiency assessment focus transfer process. on the single evaluation method. It is well known n n n 1 ''' ''' that the single evaluation method has its own de- n / Li / TP''ii / TPii i = 1 i = 1 i = 1 fects. To overcome deficiencies of the single evalua- T =+n + n (1) V ' '' tion method, more and more attention has been paid / Pi / Pi i = 1 i = 1 to hybrid evaluation methods. Xu et al. employed grey correlation method and the principal compo- where T is the average transfer time [min]; n is the nent analysis method to evaluate transfer efficien- total number of transfer passengers; Li is the walk- cy between urban metro and buses [14]. Zhu et al. ing distance of transfer passenger i from the public combined grey relation projection analysis method bicycle station to the rail transit station [m]; V ̅ is the with information entropy theory to evaluate transfer average walking speed of all transfer passengers, ' efficiency of rail transportation hub [15]. Xia and which is 66 [m/min]; Ti is the time of ticket pur- ' Ma applied grey entropy method to determine the chase of transfer passenger i [min]; Pi is 1 if transfer '' optimal transfer stations scheme for rail transit and passenger i is purchasing the ticket, 0 otherwise; Ti conventional bus [16]. Hence, a question arises: is it is the time when transfer passenger i waits for rail '' feasible to construct a hybrid evaluation method for transit [min]; Pi is 1 if transfer passenger i is wait- transfer efficiency assessment between rail transit ing to take the rail transit, 0 otherwise. 280 Promet – Traffic & Transportation, Vol. 32, 2020, No. 2, 279-289 Yan D, Guo J, Liu Z, Huang W. A Novel Hybrid Evaluation Method for Transfer Efficiency Assessment between Rail Transit... Objective level Criteria level Index level Average transfer time Fastness Average transfer distance The number of transfer passengers per unit time Matching degree of transport capacity Smoothness The ratio of transfer passengers holding a public bicycle card Setting rate of transfer signs Evaluation-index system for transfer efficiency assessment between rail transit and public bicycles Per capita transfer facilities area Comfort Transfer confort Average conflict points of transfer passengers Safety Isolation situation of bicycle lane Economy Average transfer