Empirical analysis of scaled mixed itinerary-size weibit model for itinerary choice in a schedule-based railway network

Abstract

The mixed itinerary-size weibit (MISW) model was recently developed for predicting passengers’ itinerary-choice behaviors in a schedule-based railway network. It considers passengers’ heterogeneous perceptions and relaxes the independently and identically distributed assumptions of random utility models. However, this model has not been verified using real-world data. Moreover, it is assumed that passengers hold a negative perception of overlapping, but this assumption may not be suitable for all situations. Thus, this study proposes a scaled MISW model which includes a scale parameter to address this issue. We collected passenger ticket-booking data from the South China High-Speed Railway network and conducted an empirical analysis in which we compared the performances of the scaled MISW model and other models (i.e. the multinomial logit, multinomial weibit, and MISW models). According to the results, the scaled MISW model outperformed the other models in describing passengers’ choice behaviors in the railway network.

KEYWORDS:

• Scaled mixed itinerary-size weibit model
• empirical analysis
• itinerary choice
• high-speed railway

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study were provided by the Passenger Transport Department of the China Railway Corporation. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There are two possible reasons for this: first, there might have been insufficient tickets following the large number of bookings on the 29th day; second, there might have been fewer feasible itineraries, because some trains had already departed.

2 China railway passenger tickets and fares: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E9%93%81%E8%B7%AF%E5%AE%A2%E8%BF%90%E8%BD%A6%E7%A5%A8%E4%B8%8E%E7%A5%A8%E4%BB%B7#cite_note-70 (Accessed 24 April 2020).

Additional information

Funding

The work described in this paper was supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China [Project No. [T32-101/15-R]]. The second author is supported by two scholarships (a Postgraduate Scholarship from the University of Hong Kong and a University Postgraduate Fellowship from the Jessie and George Ho Charitable Foundation). The third author is supported by research grants from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region [Project No. 15212217] and the Research Committee of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University [Project No. 1-ZVJV]. The fourth author is supported by the Francis S Y Bong Endowed Professorship in Engineering. The fifth author is supported by the Hong Kong Scholars Program 2017 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 71701174].