A SCHEDULE-BASED CAPACITY RESTRAINED TRANSIT ASSIGNMENT MODEL FOR SYSTEM PLANNING IN THIS INFORMATION AGE - APPLICATION TO THE HONG KONG MASS TRANSIT RAILWAY NETWORK

Conventional transit assignment models are based on a restrictive assumption of non-congested steady state flow and average headway for each transit line during a specified period of analysis. With the advent of the information age, using this type of frequency-based models for operational planning is inadequate as they are not sensitive to the time varying nature of transit services and trip demands. This paper describes a capacity restrained trip assignment model for congested transit networks. The network formulation is dynamic and schedule-based and vehicles are assumed to operate to a pre-determined timetable. The path-loading algorithm adopts a time increment simulation method, which ensures that the capacity constraint of each vehicle is modeled correctly and passenger boarding at stations in First-in-first-out (FIFO). The minimum path algorithm and path-loading algorithm are applied iteratively by the method of successive averages until the network converges to a predictive dynamic user equilibrium. The Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (MTR) network is used as a case study to validate the model and demonstrate its potential applications to the operational planning of a large-scale real railway system.