Reliability of Stockholm Subway ANDREY EDEMSKIY Degree Project in Traffic and Transport Planning, Second Level 30.0 credits Master’s program Transport Systems Royal Institute of Technology, 2010 Supervisor Haris N. Koutsopoulos Examiner Albania Nissan TEC-MT 10-009 Kungliga tekniska högskolan Skolan för Arkitektur och samhällsbyggnad KTH ABE 100 44 Stockholm URL: www.kth.se/abe 2 Abstract Economic growth causes the rapid process of urbanization which results in the considerable demand for transportation. Public transit is known to be one of the most effective and sustainable solutions to satisfy this demand. Among all the transportation modes subway is the most popular one having high capacity and being independent of road traffic. Expanding the subway capacity is usually expensive and the operator prefers to utilize the existing capacity more efficiently. Intensive use of the capacity may cause problems of service reliability which brings about less attraction of customers. That is why operators maximizing the capacity should guarantee the service reliability. Stockholm is a growing city and its subway also experiences difficulties in providing reliable operation. AB Storstockholm Lokaltrafik (SL), the owner of the subway network, evaluates the reliability with help of manual surveys that are costly and not comprehensive. Although SL has the system that automatically collects data on subway operations, the data are not widely applied at present. This research aims to introduce possible measures of reliability through statistical analysis of the dataset and the timetable. It includes evaluation of on-time performance; waiting and travel time; headway adherence; distribution of dwell time, delays and headways. In the case study the thesis examines the reliability of Green line in March, 2010. The results demonstrate the practical applicability of the proposed analysis which helps to detect the factors lowering reliability of the service. Key words: reliability of subway, punctuality, regularity 3 4 Acknowledgments I am heartily thankful to my supervisor, Haris Koutsopoulos, whose guidance and support enabled me to develop the project. This work would not also have been possible without assistance and encouragement of Karl Kottenhoff of Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan. Anders Börjeson and Kée Tengblad of AB Storstockholms Lokaltrafik were very helpful in providing the information and the access to the database RUST. Special thanks to Anders Ulmestig for the excursions to traffic control center and his comprehensive explaining the operation of the system. Lastly, I would like to thank my friends, in particular Guineng Chen and Beakal Tadesse Alemu, for their considerable support and assistance. 5 6 Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................. 9 1.1 Background and Motivation .............................................................................. 9 1.2 Problem Description ........................................................................................ 11 1.3 Research Objectives......................................................................................... 16 1.4 Thesis Content and Organization .................................................................... 16 Chapter 2: Literature review ........................................................................................ 17 Chapter 3: Methodology of data analysis ..................................................................... 21 3.1 Measures of punctuality ................................................................................... 21 3.1.1 On-time performance .................................................................................... 21 3.1.2 Deviation from scheduled departure ............................................................. 21 3.1.3 Dwell times distribution ................................................................................ 22 3.1.4 Travel times ................................................................................................... 22 3.1.5 Headway adherence ...................................................................................... 23 3.2 Measures of regularity ..................................................................................... 24 3.2.1 Headway distribution .................................................................................... 24 3.2.2 Waiting times ................................................................................................ 25 3.3 Analysis ........................................................................................................... 26 3.4 Assumptions and limitations ........................................................................... 27 Chapter 4: Description of the Stockholm subway system ........................................... 29 4.1 Stockholm subway ........................................................................................... 29 4.1.1 Stockholm ..................................................................................................... 29 4.1.2 History of Stockholm subway ....................................................................... 29 4.1.3 Stockholm subway nowadays ....................................................................... 30 4.2 Green Line ....................................................................................................... 32 4.2.1 Line description............................................................................................. 32 4.2.2 Main terminals .............................................................................................. 35 4.2.3 Peak hours ..................................................................................................... 38 4.2.4 Signaling system ........................................................................................... 40 7 4.2.5 Rolling stock ................................................................................................. 43 4.2.6 Information system ....................................................................................... 44 4.2.7 Traffic control center .................................................................................... 46 4.2.8 Data collection .............................................................................................. 46 4.3 RUST database ................................................................................................ 48 4.3.1 Database inquiry............................................................................................ 48 4.3.2 Data output .................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 5: Study case: Green line ................................................................................ 51 5.1 Data .................................................................................................................. 51 5.2 Timetable analysis ........................................................................................... 53 5.2.1 Headway distribution .................................................................................... 53 5.2.2 Travel times ................................................................................................... 55 5.3 Train operation analysis ................................................................................... 57 5.3.1 On-time performance .................................................................................... 57 5.3.2 Deviation from scheduled departure ............................................................. 58 5.3.3 Dwell times ................................................................................................... 59 5.3.4 Travel times ................................................................................................... 61 5.3.5 Headway adherence ...................................................................................... 65 5.3.6 Headway distribution .................................................................................... 66 5.3.7 Waiting times ................................................................................................ 71 5.4 Detailed analysis at stations ............................................................................. 73 5.4.1 T-centralen .................................................................................................... 73 5.4.2 Slussen ........................................................................................................... 76 5.4.3 Skanstull ........................................................................................................ 78 Chapter 6: Conclusions ................................................................................................ 81 6.1 Summary and conclusions ............................................................................... 81 6.2 Future research ................................................................................................. 82 References .................................................................................................................... 85 Appendix ...................................................................................................................... 87 8 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background and Motivation Economic growth causes the rapid process of urbanization. The cities and their population constantly