Niels van Oort

Delft University of Technology | TU · Department of Transport & Planning

p>Train motion model calibration is crucial to ensure the accuracy and performance of any railway algorithm that requires reproducing and predicting train dynamics. The calibration must be robust against measurement outliers and missing data. However, such a robust train motion model calibrator is still missing in the literature. In this paper, we...

Understanding user's perception of service variability is essential to discern their overall perception of any type of (transport) service. We study the perception of waiting time variability for ride-hailing services. We carried out a stated preference survey in August 2021, yielding 936 valid responses. The respondents were faced with static pre-...

This paper uses stated preference data collected in the city of Rotterdam and discrete choice modelling techniques to study the relationship between public transport and shared micromobility. It assumes a hypothetical condition of integrated systems and studies the relationships of complement and competition between these modes. The findings sugges...

Validation of travel demand models, although recognised as important, is seldom undertaken. This study adds to the scarce literature in this field by undertaking an external validation of a multi-modal transit route choice model. The model was estimated using smart card data for the urban transit network of Amsterdam before the introduction of a ne...

Digitalisation in public transport has become pervasive over the past decade, especially in urban areas. While it benefits many, it also leaves some behind. Previous research shows that older adults, people with a lower education level, people with impairments and people with a migration background are more likely to be negatively impacted by digit...

The dynamics of a moving train are usually described by means of a motion model based on Newton’s second law. This model uses as input track geometry data and train characteristics like mass, the parameters that model the running resistance, the maximum tractive effort and power, and the brake rates to be applied. It can reproduce and predict train...

On-demand mobility services (FLEX) are often proposed as a solution for the first/last mile problem. We study the potential of using FLEX to improve train station access by means of a three-step sequential stated preference survey. We compare FLEX with the bicycle, car and public transport for accessing two alternative train stations. We estimate a...

Mobility patterns and transport systems have been heavily impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Public transport is impacted heavily, as governments worldwide advised against using it. This paper presents the data collection effort initiated by NS (Dutch Railways) and Delft University of Technology to capture changes in travel behavior, attitudes...

Understanding user's perception of service variability is essential to discern their overall perception of any type of (transport) service. We study the perception of waiting time variability for ride-hailing services. We carried out a stated preference survey in August 2021, yielding 936 valid responses. The respondents were faced with static pre-...

Shared transport modes can potentially contribute to first and last mile connections of public transport (PT) trips but this remains quite underexplored in the literature. Our study explores the user preferences for shared modes as first and last mile option to connect activity locations. We have focussed on local public transport in the Utrecht pr...

Train movement dynamics are usually modelled by means of Newton’s second law. The resulting dynamic equation can be very precise if the parameters that it depends on are determined accurately. However, these parameters may vary in time and show wide variations, making the calibration task nontrivial and jeopardizing the performance of a broad varie...

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented challenge for public transport systems. The capacity of transport systems has been significantly reduced because of the social distancing measures. Therefore, new avenues to increase the resilience of public urban mobility need to be explored. In this work, we investigate the integration of bike sharing...

Non-electrified regional railway lines with typically employed diesel-electric multiple units require alternative propulsion systems to meet increasingly strict emissions regulations. With the aim to identify an optimal alternative to conventional diesel traction, this paper presents a model-based assessment of hydrogen-powered propulsion systems w...

Predictions on Public Transport (PT) ridership are beneficial as they allow for sufficient and cost-efficient deployment of vehicles. On an operational level, this relates to short-term predictions with lead times of less than an hour. Where conventional data sources on ridership, such as Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) data, may have longer lag ti...

The railway sector is facing significant challenges in addressing the increasing concerns related to climate change, environmental pollution and scarcity of resources. This especially applies to often non-electrified regional railway networks, with passenger services provided by diesel-driven vehicles. Innovative propulsion system concepts offer si...

On-demand mobility services are promising to revolutionise urban travel, but preliminary studies are showing they may actually increase total vehicle miles travelled, worsening road congestion in cities. In this study, we assess the demand for on-demand mobility services in urban areas, using a stated preference survey, to understand the potential...

With the arrival of COVID-19 in the Netherlands in Spring 2020 and the start of the “intelligent lockdown”, daily life changed drastically. The working population was urged to telework as much as possible. However, not everyone had a suitable job for teleworking or liked teleworking. From a mobility perspective, teleworking was considered a suitabl...

Perceived travel times of travelers are usually longer than actually realized travel times, implying that passengers’ experience of travel time savings is different from objectively calculated savings. This study provides additional empirical evidence on this topic, by comparing the passengers’ perceived travel times reported in an (online) survey...

Unreliable waiting times may cause frustration and anxiety amongst public transport travellers. Although the effect of travel time reliability has been studied extensively, most studies have used stated preferences which have disadvantages, such as an inherent hypothetical bias, or have analysed revealed preferences for road traffic. Here, we deriv...

In this study a unique bicycle sharing program (BSP) is studied: a BSP initiated by an urban transit provider (buses and trams). The idea is that the combined use of BSPs and buses and trams could increase the catchment area of urban transit alone, therefore offering a more competitive alternative for the car. However, in the scientific literature...

Emerging access/egress transport modes to and from railway stations may play a vital role in the future performance and usage of public transport. To learn about these modes, their acceptability, and attractiveness, we performed a case study at Delft Campus train station in the Netherlands, using a stated preference experiment. We investigated trav...

The emergence of on-demand transport services is set to change the mobility landscape in urban areas. This study investigates the potential scalability of an on-demand mobility system to substitute motorised trips performed by private cars and public transport in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We adopt an agent-based simulation framework and investiga...

Capturing unobserved correlation between overlapping routes is a non-trivial problem in route choice modelling. For urban transit networks, research so far has been inconclusive on how this overlap is perceived by travellers. We estimate a series of path size correction logit (PSCL) models to account for alternative specifications of route overlap,...

First/last mile transport is essential for transit but is often found to be the weakest link in a trip. Moreover, as a result of multiple developments (e.g. demographic shifts, urbanization, climate change, technology advancement) first/last mile transport will likely change rapidly. The literature review of this study shows six different categorie...

Toegankelijkheid van het openbaar vervoer (ov) krijgt door de verdergaande digitalisering een nieuwe dimensie. Uit onze recente KiM-studie "Digitalisering en het openbaar vervoer" waarbij diepte-interviews onder mensen met een verhoogd risico op digitale uitsluiting zijn afgenomen, blijkt dat zij zowel voordelen als nadelen bij de digitalisering in...

Het gedrag van treinreizigers tijdens en na Covid: inzichten uit een longitudinaal onderzoek onder Nederlandse treinreizigers Mark van Hagen-NS-mark.vanhagen@ns.nl Niels van Oort-TU Delft-n.vanoort@tudelft.nl Danique Ton-NS Stations / TU Delft-danique.ton@nsstations.nl Bijdrage aan het Colloquium Vervoersplanologisch Speurwerk 25 en 26 november 202...

This paper considers an increasingly popular, sustainable multimodality: the combination of bicycle and transit. The flexibility of the bicycle combined with the speed and comfort of good transit can be a highly competitive alternative to the car. This study shows that many factors influence the uptake and attractiveness of the bicycle-transit comb...

We perform an analysis of public transport data from The Hague, the Netherlands, combined from three sources: static network information, automatic vehicles location and automated fare collection data. We highlight the effect of bunching swings, and show that this phenomenon can be extracted using unsupervised machine learning techniques, namely cl...

Public transport in rural areas is under pressure because demand is low and dispersed. To reduce costs, flexible and on-demand services are often proposed as alternatives for conventional bus services. Conventional services are generally not suitable for rural areas, because the demand is low and dispersed. In this paper, a stated preference survey...

Driverless shuttles are a new automated road-based means of transport, small in size and capacity and with a relatively low operational speed. Classified as high-automation vehicles, these shuttles are capable of driverless operations in specific operational design domains. Given their characteristics, driverless shuttles have been studied as a fir...

Simulation studies suggest that pooled on-demand services (also referred to as Demand Responsive Transport, ridesharing, shared ride-hailing or shared ridesourcing services) have the potential to bring large benefits to urban areas while inducing limited time losses for their users. However, in reality, the large majority of users request individua...

On-demand mobility services are promising to revolutionise urban travel, but preliminary studies are showing that they may actually increase the total vehicle miles travelled, thereby worsening road congestion in cities. In this study, we assess the demand for on-demand mobility services in urban areas, using a stated preference survey, to understa...

Ride-hailing and other on-demand mobility services are often proposed as a solution for improving the accessibility of public transport by offering first/last mile connectivity. We study the potential of using on-demand services to improve train station access by means of a three-step sequential stated preference survey. We compare the preferences...

Hybridization of diesel multiple unit railway vehicles is an effective approach to reduce fuel consumption and related emissions in regional non-electrified networks. This paper is part of a bigger project realized in collaboration with Arriva, the largest regional railway undertaking in the Netherlands, to identify optimal solutions in improving t...

The built environment is an important determinant of travel demand and mode choice. Establishing the relationship between the built environment and transit use using direct models can help planners predict the impact of neighborhood-level changes, that are otherwise overlooked. However, limited research has compared the impacts of the built environ...

Digitalisation in transport services offers many benefits for travellers. However, not everyone is willing or able to follow the new, more or less formal requirements digitalisation has brought along. Existing reviews on the intersection between Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and mobility cover a range of vantage points, but the...

The pandemic had (and still has) an obvious impact on public transport (use). To gain insights into passenger behaviour during and after the pandemic, a longitudinal survey is organised with the goal to capture behaviour, attitudes and intentions related to train usage. Four surveys were held between April and December 2020, involving 23,000-47,000...

Due to the multi-level nature of public transport networks, disruption impacts may spill-over beyond the primary effects occurring at the disrupted network level. During a public transport disruption, it is therefore important to quantify and control the disruption impacts for the total public transport network, instead of delimiting the analysis o...

This paper develops a method for analysing the elasticity of travel demand to public transport fares. The methodology utilizes public transport smartcard data for collecting disaggregate full population data about passengers’ travel behaviour. The study extends previous work by deriving specific fare elasticities for distinct socioeconomic (e.g., c...

Circuity of transit networks, defined as the ratio of network to Euclidean distance traveled from origin to destination stop, has been known to influence travel behavior. In addition to the longer time spent in travel, for networks where fare is based on distance traveled, higher circuity also means higher fare for the same Euclidean distance. This...

Shared transport creates an opportunity to facilitate the last mile connections of public transport (PT) trips. Nevertheless, user preferences for using such shared modes as last-mile connection have hardly been studied. To explore such preferences within urban areas we have designed and conducted a stated choice experiment in the province of Utrec...

Waiting time has been consistently shown to have significant impact on route choice behaviour in public transport networks. Furthermore, unreliability in this component may cause frustration and anxiety in travellers. Although the effect of travel time reliability has been studied extensively, most studies have used stated preferences which have di...

Automated vehicles (AVs) have the potential to complement our current public transport system and thereby improve the livability and accessibility. Many pilots have been conducted in the Netherlands, Europe, America and other countries worldwide, but permanently operating services are very limited. This paper aims to provide insight into possibilit...

The north-south metro line in Amsterdam became operational in summer 2018, accompanied by changes to the existing bus, metro, and tram network in the city. In this paper we undertake an ex-post analysis of the transportation impacts of the network change. Using two sets of smart card transactions, of 5-6 weeks each, and corresponding Automatic Vehi...

Shared Automated Vehicles (SAVs) are a new road-based means of transport, usually small in size and capacity, with a relatively low operating speed and no (regular) possibility for the user to engage in any of the driving tasks. Past research focused on the implication of fully Automated Vehicles (AVs) in the transport sector, especially automated...

The recent emergence of innovative mobility solutions is changing the mobility landscape in urban areas. However, it remains unknown how the combined operation of private and pooled on-demand services affect service performance and the required dimensioning of the fleet size for such services. This study develops a model to determine the fleet size...

Public transport is an effective tool to address multiple societal challenges, regarding mobility, sustainability and livability. When looking at typical public transport projects and traditional appraisal methods, the main type of benefits that are considered for public transport projects are passenger travel time savings, additional revenues due...

The tram is a sustainable mode of transport. However, tram tracks are often shared with vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians and cyclists. In this mixed environment, accidents between trams and VRUs are very rare but severe at the same time. Previous studies have acknowledged that tram driving is a complex and very demanding task. Yet,...

The co-existence of traditional docked bike-sharing and emerging dockless systems presents new opportunities for sustainable transportation in cities all over the world, both serving door to door trips and accessing/egressing to/from public transport systems. However, most of the previous studies have separately examined the travel patterns of dock...

The diffusion of the smartphone and the urban sprawl is pushing both private and public actors to revisit the concept of demand-responsive transport (DRT). This paper provides a historical overview of DRT experiences, understanding their pros and cons. In addition, it presents the case study of Mokumflex, a 12-month DRT pilot program that replaced...

This paper develops a method for analysing the elasticity of travel demand to public transport fares. The methodology utilizes public transport smartcard data for collecting disaggregate, full population data about passengers’ travel behaviour. The study extends previous work by deriving specific fare elasticities for distinct socioeconomic (e.g.,...

Governments worldwide are aiming to increase sustainable mode use to increase sustainability, livability, and accessibility. Integration of bicycle and transit can increase catchment areas of transit compared with walking and thus provide better competition to non-sustainable modes. To achieve this, effective measures have to be designed that requi...

The uptake of on-demand services is increasing rapidly all over the world. However, the market share of their pooled version (ridesharing, e.g., UberPOOL or LyftLine) is still low, despite its potential in addressing the mobility challenges that dense urban cities are facing. In this research, we analyse user preferences towards pooled on-demand se...

The recent technological innovations in various ICT platforms have given rise to innovative mobility solutions. Such systems could potentially address some of the inherent shortcomings of a line/schedule based public transport system. Previous studies either assumed that flexible on-demand services are used as an exclusive door-to-door service or o...

Bike-sharing systems have witnessed rapid growth in the last decades. Bike-sharing has been found to influence modal shift from car, public transit, and active transportation modes. However, the impacts on modal shift by considering different kinds of bike-sharing systems are rarely discussed. This study examines the modal shift dynamics and the in...