DETERMINATION OF PASSENGER-TRAFFIC FLOWS IN REGIONAL TRANSPORT SYSTEM ON THE BASIS OF MODIFIED GRAVITY MODELS

The paper considers a transportation system of  one poorly developed region of the Eastern Siberia where it is planned to make investments for improvement of the corresponding infrastructure. The efficient investment disbursement presupposes study of the existing demand for transport services in the field of passenger traffic.  Results of the observations can be used for development planning of a road network and a bus service system.

Due to lack of direct data on the existing demand efforts have been made to obtain its model description while using modified gravity models that make it possible to estimate  volumes of population transportation which is carried out between residential areas by public transport buses and private vehicles. The given models have permitted to make analysis of more than 5000 populated locality pairs for 86 residential areas where the population constitutes more than 80 % and its passenger flow formation component in equal to 60%. Traffic flows between these settlement pairs have been estimated with the help of gravity models with various attraction functions and Arrowsmith method for provision of transportation balances. The most adequate results have been obtained while using an exponential attraction function for individual vehicles and a power attraction function  for passenger route auto transport. Such approach is consistent with the preference of the route auto transport in case of long-distance transport service. A tree-like structure of the existing traffic system has given the possibility to avoid consideration of  alternative routes in case of passenger transportation and directly calculate transport flows for certain road sections. Comparative analysis of the transport flows using the proposed methodology and the existing partial data of the executed observations reveals  satisfactory coincidence of empirical data for the main part of the traffic system. The obtained results demonstrate an efficiency of the described approach and the presented data can be used as a benchmarking tool for transport planning.

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