Land Use as a Criterion for the Selection of the Trip Starting Locations of Park and Ride Mode Travelers

Abstract

In the attempt to study Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems, and their necessary underlying components, such as Park and Ride (P&R) sub-systems, this article aims to showcase the importance of land-use as a criterion in the selection of trip starting locations (i.e., points), that can potentially be used as the basis for quantitative studies on LRT and P&R systems. In order to achieve this goal, a method is introduced for the selection of locations that produce P&R mode trips based on the land-use attributes of sub-zones or neighborhoods, as they are included in Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs). Those land-use attributes are utilized as sub-criteria for the classification and valid selection of trip starting locations out of a broader dataset of available locations. As a second supportive technique that needs to be utilized for this study, an algorithm is introduced, which allows us to test the effectiveness of the method and the importance of land use as a criterion. The algorithm enables the calculation and comparison of the attributes of the trips to be followed by P&R mode users starting from selected trip starting locations for each zone in a city and having as destinations the several available P&R facilities. Results for the methods introduced in this article are showcased based on a case study on the mid-sized city of Cuenca, Ecuador, in which, several metrics, such as traveling times considering different traffic scenarios, are examined for the potential P&R mode trips as they emerge from real-world data.