Evaluating the alignment of new metro line considering network vulnerability with passenger ridership

ABSTRACT

Network vulnerability of urban rail transit systems generally reflects the functionality loss caused by node or line operational disruptions, which may be taken into consideration during the planning stage. This study aimed to identify the optimal alignment corridor of a new metro line by considering network vulnerability. A quantitative approach was developed to assess the performance of an urban metro network under various disruption scenarios. In addition to vulnerability characteristics, the utility of new ridership and total construction costs were accounted. The metro network in Pudong District of Shanghai, China, has been adopted as the case study, and an optimal corridor was identified for the new line linking the center of the district to a planned major facility. The result obtained by the Tabu Search algorithm indicates that the proposed approach can be integrated into the planning of rail transit systems for improving the reliability and resilience of public transportation service.

KEYWORDS:

• Vulnerability optimization
• urban rail transit
• complex network
• Geographic Information Systems
• Tabu Search algorithm

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their appreciation to thank the Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co., Ltd for providing the passenger flow data. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Daniel(Jian) Sun http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4331-6502

Additional information

Funding

The research was sponsored in part by the Humanities, and Social Science Research Project (No. 18YJCZH011, No. 19YJCZH027), Ministry of Education, China, and the Shanghai Municipal Natural Science Foundation (No. 17ZR1445500).