TRANS-FORM - Towards the Development of More Attractive Public Transport

Well-functioning and appropriate public transport systems are a cornerstone of today's and tomorrow's attractive, sustainable cities and communities. However, steady, extensive traffic development and market deregulation over several years have, among other things, contributed to the interaction between the various actors in the public transport system becoming more complex.

Information and payment services for public transport passengers are improving, but in the event of disruptions to public transport services, it is still very difficult for passengers to get sufficient and up-to-date information on how the journey will be completed. For planners and traffic management, there is also a huge challenge in creating robust plans that bring flexibility in operations, monitoring the traffic situation and managing the system in a proactive way that balances internal priorities with those of passengers.

The need for increased coordination between the different actors of the public transport system, including passengers, is therefore significant today.

The TRANS-FORM project aims to develop and evaluate concepts and methods to enable increased coordination between the various actors of the public transport systems by taking advantage of multiple data sources on, among other things, passenger flows and traffic system characteristics integrated with effective computational support both during planning and at an operational stage.

The project partners who will implement the project - in close collaboration with a number of additional stakeholders linked to the project case studies - are

• TU Delft, The Netherlands (contact: Dr. Oded Cats)
• École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (contact: Dr. Riccardo Scarinci)
• Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden (contact: Associate Professor Johanna Törnquist Krasemann)
• Linköping University, Sweden (contact: Associate Professor Clas Rydergren)
• IBM Research, Switzerland (contact: Dr. Marco Laumanns)
• ETRA, Spain (contact: Mr. Antonio Marqués)

The project work will be based on case studies where the applicability of developed common concepts and methods will be studied:

• Haagenlanden, The Netherlands: Focus on local public transport and multimodal traveler exchanges.

• Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland: Focus on local-regional public transport in major nodes of public transport networks.

• Blekinge-Skåne, Sweden: Focus on regional traffic and passenger flows between long-distance and regional traffic.

The project runs 2016-2018 and is granted funding through the call "the ERA-NET Smart Cities and Communities (ENSCC)" by JPI Urban Europe. The project leader is Dr. Oded Cats at TU Delft.

The Swedish part of the project is funded by FORMAS with co-financing and support from Karlshamn Municipality/Netport, Region Blekinge and the Swedish Transport Administration and is coordinated by Johanna Törnquist Krasemann, Blekinge Institute of Technology. From BTH, doctoral student Sai Prashanth Josyula also participates.