Using data from Beijing, this paper evaluates job accessibility for people living in affordable housing to job centers by public transit, including urban metro and bus. By comparing the middle and low-income group who mainly use public transit and higher income group who mainly travel by car, results show an accessibility gap for different modes of transportation as travel by public transit takes nearly double the amount of time as travel by car. While commuting time is closely linked to the location of the provided affordable housing, it is also dependent on the quality of local public transit service. Areas with substantial travel time differences between public transit and car travel reveal the weaknesses of public transit provision. Furthermore, average commuting time by both public transit and car from areas of affordable housing built after 2004 is much longer than that from previously built areas implying that low-income groups are being driven to more disadvantaged locations with time changes. In contrast to the classical job-housing mismatch hypothesis in U.S. cities, the mismatch model in Chinese cities is that while major job opportunities are still concentrated in the central city, affordable housing residents who rely on urban metro and bus are being moved further afield into distant suburban areas. The paper will provide the implication for affordable housing and transportation planning in Chinese cities in the future. Improving job accessibility by further establishment of urban metro system for this demographic will promote the urban economy and provide social welfare for the disadvantaged.

This paper proposes a newly designed system for baggage transfer, which utilises the Nexus Metro system in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne by running a pendulum freight train system between the Haymarket and Newcastle Airport to carry travellers’ baggage. This system is capable of serving all passengers departing from Newcastle Airport in a day, with a capacity of 9750 bags across 26 freight train journeys. Following the initial solution two more solutions were designed with the aim of maximising the utilisation of the metro tracks by saturating the system with freight trains on a 24-h system. All solutions have been replicated using models designed and validated by event-based simulation using SIMUL8, a simulation modelling software package.

Full-scale roller rigs are recognized as useful test stands to investigate wheel-rail contact/damage issues and for developing new solutions to extend the life and improve the behaviour of railway systems. The replacement of the real track by a pair of rollers on the roller rig causes, however, inherent differences between wheel-rail and wheel-roller contact. In order to ensure efficient utilization of the roller rigs and correct interpretation of the test results with respect to the field wheel-rail scenarios, the differences and the corresponding causes must be understood a priori. The aim of this paper is to derive the differences between these two contact cases from a mathematical point of view and to find the influence factors of the differences with the final aim of better translating the results of tests performed on a roller rig to the field case.

This paper develops a method for optimizing the construction phases for rail transit line extension projects with the objective of maximizing the net present worth and examines the economic feasibility of such extension projects under various financial constraints (i.e., unconstrained, revenue-constrained, and budget-constrained cases). A Simulated Annealing algorithm is used for solving this problem. Rail transit projects may be divided into several phases due to budget limits or demand growth that justifies different sections at different times. A mathematical model is developed to optimize these phases for a simple, one-route rail transit system, running from a Central Business District (CBD) to a suburban area. Some interesting results indicate that the economic feasibility of links with low demand is affected by the completion time of those links and their demand growth rate after their implementation. Sensitivity analysis explores the effects of interest rates on optimized results (i.e., construction phases and objective value). With further development, such a method should be useful to transportation planners and decision-makers in optimizing construction phases for rail transit line extension projects.

Contrary to the declining number of fatalities due to train–vehicle collisions at highway-rail grade crossings, the number of pedestrian and bicycle fatalities at highway- and pathway-rail grade crossings has increased in the last dozen years. While engineering solutions and education and enforcements initiatives have been proposed and implemented, little is known as to their effectiveness to mitigate such incidents. This paper reports on findings from the literature and discussions with professionals in the public and private sectors involved in safety at rail grade crossings. Major areas found in need for improvement include (a) advancing consistent standards for warning devices and treatments; (b) advancing consistent approaches for managing non-motorist risk; and (c) continuing commitment to education, engineering, enforcement, and evaluation efforts by enabling stakeholders to provide adequate resources. The paper highlights the multitude of factors related to pedestrian safety in this context, and provides an informed discussion for researchers and practitioners involved in advancing safety initiatives.

Railway re-emerges as one of the most important man-made physical systems in the world. Hundreds of million passengers travel by trains within cities. Hence, the management and maintenance of rail and station facilities are crucial. The paper introduces five centrality measures and explains whether and how these measures can be applied to the network analysis of urban rail systems. Centrality measures were used to identify the characteristics of Hong Kong’s urban rail system. Results showed that betweenness centrality is the most appropriate measure to indicate the relative importance of a station based on its potential on strategic facility management and risk management in an urban rail system.

The paper presents an innovative approach to modelling the causal relationships of human errors in rail crack incidents (RCI) from a managerial perspective. A Bayesian belief network is developed to model RCI by considering the human errors of designers, manufactures, operators and maintainers (DMOM) and the causal relationships involved. A set of dependent variables whose combinations express the relevant functions performed by each DMOM participant is used to model the causal relationships. A total of 14 RCI on Hong Kong’s mass transit railway (MTR) from 2008 to 2011 are used to illustrate the application of the model. Bayesian inference is used to conduct an importance analysis to assess the impact of the participants’ errors. Sensitivity analysis is then employed to gauge the effect the increased probability of occurrence of human errors on RCI. Finally, strategies for human error identification and mitigation of RCI are proposed. The identification of ability of maintainer in the case study as the most important factor influencing the probability of RCI implies the priority need to strengthen the maintenance management of the MTR system and that improving the inspection ability of the maintainer is likely to be an effective strategy for RCI risk mitigation.