Development of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation

dc.contributor.advisorZuidgeest, Marcus
dc.contributor.advisorNnene, Obiora
dc.contributor.authorMzengereza, Isaac
dc.date.accessioned2022-03-06T19:23:33Z
dc.date.available2022-03-06T19:23:33Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.date.updated2022-03-06T19:21:57Z
dc.description.abstractMunicipalities increasingly have less financial resources to spend on implementation of transport strategies and plans. This situation is putting pressure on transport professionals to minimize wasteful expenditure on projects that do not deliver high transport service improvements. As such, the need for efficient, pragmatic decision making on policy direction, infrastructure expenditure, or any transport interventions is becoming very critical. Thus, transport professionals are increasingly in need of tools to help them predict with increased accuracy the outcomes of their intended transport interventions. The City of Cape Town has a Bus Rapid Transport system called MyCiTi. Current MyCiTi operations are incurring losses. The service is kept running on the back of subsidies from the federal government. There is a need for rationalization of the system. However, with strained resources, the interventions on the system have to guarantee improvements. Overemphasis on the ability of MyCiTi BRT service to support transportation during the 2010 soccer world cup event heavily influenced the design of the network. As a result, network appraisal is one area that can be done on the system to identify areas of improvement. In this thesis, decision making support will be demonstrated using a network design appraisal process for the MyCiTi BRT system in Cape Town. The existing MyCiTi network will undergo network improvement using heuristic node insertion technique leading to multiple network scenarios in a modeling environment. Agent-Based demand mobility behavior simulation will be used on each of the network scenarios to come up with network performance indicators. These network performance indicators will be used in the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model to come up with a ranking of the network scenarios and help in deciding on the optimum network improvement intervention. Overall, findings of this research show the importance of weighting of the performance indicators. Where networks that score well in the performance indicator with the high weights also rank high. In conclusion, the study has demonstrated the importance of decision making support in interventions on complex systems like bus systems. Recommendations on the possible avenues of research stemming from this thesis have also been outlined.
dc.identifier.apacitationMzengereza, I. (2021). <i>Development of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation</i>. (). ,Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment ,Department of Civil Engineering. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35953en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationMzengereza, Isaac. <i>"Development of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation."</i> ., ,Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment ,Department of Civil Engineering, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35953en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationMzengereza, I. 2021. Development of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation. . ,Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment ,Department of Civil Engineering. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35953en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Master Thesis AU - Mzengereza, Isaac AB - Municipalities increasingly have less financial resources to spend on implementation of transport strategies and plans. This situation is putting pressure on transport professionals to minimize wasteful expenditure on projects that do not deliver high transport service improvements. As such, the need for efficient, pragmatic decision making on policy direction, infrastructure expenditure, or any transport interventions is becoming very critical. Thus, transport professionals are increasingly in need of tools to help them predict with increased accuracy the outcomes of their intended transport interventions. The City of Cape Town has a Bus Rapid Transport system called MyCiTi. Current MyCiTi operations are incurring losses. The service is kept running on the back of subsidies from the federal government. There is a need for rationalization of the system. However, with strained resources, the interventions on the system have to guarantee improvements. Overemphasis on the ability of MyCiTi BRT service to support transportation during the 2010 soccer world cup event heavily influenced the design of the network. As a result, network appraisal is one area that can be done on the system to identify areas of improvement. In this thesis, decision making support will be demonstrated using a network design appraisal process for the MyCiTi BRT system in Cape Town. The existing MyCiTi network will undergo network improvement using heuristic node insertion technique leading to multiple network scenarios in a modeling environment. Agent-Based demand mobility behavior simulation will be used on each of the network scenarios to come up with network performance indicators. These network performance indicators will be used in the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model to come up with a ranking of the network scenarios and help in deciding on the optimum network improvement intervention. Overall, findings of this research show the importance of weighting of the performance indicators. Where networks that score well in the performance indicator with the high weights also rank high. In conclusion, the study has demonstrated the importance of decision making support in interventions on complex systems like bus systems. Recommendations on the possible avenues of research stemming from this thesis have also been outlined. DA - 2021 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town KW - Agent Based Modelling KW - Route Node Insertion KW - Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PY - 2021 T1 - Development of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation TI - Development of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35953 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/35953
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationMzengereza I. Development of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation. []. ,Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment ,Department of Civil Engineering, 2021 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35953en_ZA
dc.language.rfc3066eng
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Civil Engineering
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Engineering and the Built Environment
dc.subjectAgent Based Modelling
dc.subjectRoute Node Insertion
dc.subjectMulti-Criteria Decision Analysis
dc.titleDevelopment of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationlevelMSc (Eng)
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