Combining Transit Route Origin-Destination Passenger Flow Matrices into Integrated Area or Corridor Matrices: Evaluating Flow Patterns on the OSU Campus and along a Columbus Corridor THESIS Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Herbert E. Reinhold, B.S. Graduate Program in Civil Engineering The Ohio State University 2013 Thesis Committee: Dr. Mark R. McCord, Co-Advisor Dr. Rabi G. Mishalani, Co-Advisor Dr. Philip A. Viton Copyright by Herbert E. Reinhold 2013 Abstract Understanding origin-destination (OD) passenger travel patterns on bus routes is valuable when designing transit services, improving operations strategies, and forecasting demand on the system. For a bus transit system, passenger travel patterns can be determined at the route-level or route pattern-level to represent passenger flows between boarding and alighting stops for a single bus route. Although useful in several dimensions of transit planning, a single route or route pattern OD matrix may not accurately reflect travel behavior between an OD pair. Incorporating flows across multiple routes or route patterns within a transit corridor or network area can provide additional information useful for the understanding of travel patterns. A methodology was developed to combine route or route-pattern OD matrices into an integrated OD matrix in the absence of route transfers for improved understanding of transit passenger flows. This methodology was applied to the Ohio State University Campus Area Bus Service (CABS) network to determine the impact of adding a new route on traveler behavior, determine temporal passenger flows on the network, and investigate the impact of class schedules on passenger intra-hour travel patterns. The methodology was also applied to the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) Route 10 to combine multiple route patterns within a corridor for the purpose of determining travel patterns and gathering additional passenger flow information for OD pairs served by ii multiple route patterns. The results of these investigations reveal that the integrated OD matrix identifies noticeable spatial and temporal changes in passenger travel patterns across multiple routes and route patterns in a transit corridor or network. Additional interesting findings regarding traveler demand on specific OD pairs were determined within the integrated OD matrix that could not be identified at the route-level. In summary, the findings of this investigation support the validity of the integrated OD matrix approach for improving understanding of passenger travel behavior across multiple routes or route patterns in a transit corridor or network area. iii Dedication I dedicate this thesis to my family, for all the love and support they have given at every step during my educational journey. iv Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my advisors, Dr. Mark McCord and Dr. Rabi Mishalani, for their constant support throughout my time as a graduate research associate. Their wisdom, patience, guidance, and enthusiasm were all invaluable during this process. Working with you has been an especially rewarding experience. I would also like to thank Dr. Philip Viton for serving on my thesis committee. Thanks also to Dr. Prem Goel, from The Ohio State University (OSU) Department of Statistics, for his wisdom and guidance during our weekly meetings. I would like to thank The Ohio State University and the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering for all the support and encouragement as I pursued a dual degree in urban transportation planning. A special thanks to Allan Johnson for his generous support of the Campus Transit Lab and the Allan Johnson fellowship, which I received during the academic year 2011-2012. I also gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Transit Administration, U.S. DOT Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) through the Region V University Transportation Center (NEXTRANS), the OSU Transportation Research Endowment, and the OSU Transportation & Parking (T&P) Services (now Department of Transportation & Traffic Management). Special thanks to Sarah Blouch and Chris v Kovitya (formerly, OSU T&P), Doug Moore, Ginny Barry, and Julie Wilder (COTA) for the opportunity to use CABS and COTA data for my research. The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions reflected in this thesis are the responsibility of the author and co-advisors and do not represent the official policy or position of any of these entities or individuals. Thank you to all my classmates who contributed in a variety of ways to my research. Special thanks to Alex Beim, Greg Burch, Cheng Chen, Mahsa Ettefagh, Greg Hertler, Xudong Hu, Yuxiong Ji, Andrew Landgraf, Nicole Sell, Chenbo Shangguan, Xiao Wei, and Xiaofei Xu. Your support and insights were extremely helpful. Thanks to my family and friends for their constant encouragement throughout this process. vi Vita 2006....................................................Academy of Science and Technology 2010....................................................B.S. Civil Engineering, University of Notre Dame 2010 to present ..................................Graduate Research Associate, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering, The Ohio State University Field of Study Major Field: Civil Engineering vii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Vita .................................................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiv Chapter 1: Introduction to the Integrated Origin-Destination Matrix Approach ................ 1 1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Overall approach .................................................................................................. 3 1.3 Scope of research ................................................................................................. 5 1.4 Organization of thesis........................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2: Methodology for Application to The Ohio State University Campus Area Bus Service............................................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Description of CABS ......................................................................................... 11 viii 2.2 Methodology ...................................................................................................... 12 2.2.1 Network representation ............................................................................... 13 2.2.2 Aggregation into period-level volume OD flows ....................................... 20 2.2.3 Combination of route-level ODs into integrated OD flow matrix .............. 22 2.2.4 Validation of methodology on CABS ......................................................... 24 Chapter 3: Applications to The Ohio State University Campus Area Bus Service .......... 32 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 32 3.2 Impact of Central Connector route on passenger travel patterns ........................... 32 3.3 CABS network-level passenger flows by time-of-day .......................................... 42 3.4 Intra-hour travel pattern analysis ........................................................................... 53 3.4.1 Methodology ............................................................................................... 55 3.4.2 Investigation on effect of class schedules on travel patterns ...................... 60 Chapter 4: Application to Central Ohio Transit Authority: Determination of Passenger Travel Patterns across Multiple Route Patterns ................................................................ 79 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 79 4.2 Description of COTA ............................................................................................. 81 4.3 Methodology .......................................................................................................... 83 4.4 Application on COTA Route 10 ............................................................................ 94 4.4.1 Time-of-day travel patterns ............................................................................ 94 ix 4.4.2 Evaluation of integrated OD matrix ............................................................. 103 Chapter