The Quality of Public Transport Services in Multimodal Commuting in a Megalopolis

The paper examines methodological issues related to development of an effective mechanism for structural and parametric identification of segments (streams) within connected flows of pedestrians and passengers through complex, long routes of movement of individuals within the boundaries of amegalopolis. Such routes determine significant volumes of multimodal transportation, repeated during the working week during peak hours, so it is necessary to identify them for managerial decision-making by organisations involved in transport planning, public transport traffic administration and provision of public transportation services. The key point of the study is to determine the logic of choosing a route through an integral assessment of its quality, which includes an assessment of the quality of not only travelling itself and of services available during transportation, but also of the quality of transport infrastructure facilities, as well as of street-and-road network facilities on real routes involved in movement of people across the urban agglomeration. To specify complex routes, flows with general parameters for formation and selection of routes for specific groups of pedestrian and passengers, and to build models of their behaviour, the study proposes a new key object, that is a public transport user (PTU), as well as an algorithm for identifying such routes using data from cellular operators. It is shown that the known tools for studying the structure of demand for travelling on public transport are rather ineffective. The results of a study of the quality of public transport perceived by users within Moscow urban agglomeration presented in the paper have revealed a shift in priorities in choosing a route option from more time and money saving to the best in terms of convenience and quality of public transport on the route. The study suggests amodified model of interdependent activities that directly influence the assessment of the quality of public transport on the PTU route, as well as a model of the sensitivity of PTU to the quality of route options.