Forecasting the use of new local railway stations and services using GIS

The aim of this thesis is to develop an integrated methodology for investigating the<br/>potential for new local railway stations within a given area, with particular emphasis on the<br/>use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Existing methods for assessing the case<br/>for constructing new local railway stations have often been found wanting, with the<br/>forecasts produced proving to be inaccurate.<br/><br/>A review of previous work in this field has been undertaken and methodologies with the<br/>potential to enhance local rail demand models have been identified. Trip rate and trip end<br/>models have been developed which are capable of forecasting usage at new station sites<br/>anywhere in England and Wales. Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) has been<br/>used to enhance the performance of these models and to account for local variations in the<br/>effects of explanatory variables on rail demand. Flow level models have been produced<br/>for stations in South-East Wales, with a range of model formulations tested. A survey of<br/>ultimate passenger trip origins and destinations was carried out in the same area, enabling<br/>the accuracy of theoretical station catchment definition methods to be tested.<br/><br/>A GIS-based procedure for locating potential sites for new railway stations within a given<br/>area has been developed. This was combined with the results from the demand models and<br/>estimates of associated costs and benefits to give a synthesised appraisal procedure capable<br/>of assessing the case for constructing particular stations. This procedure was applied to 14<br/>sites in South-East Wales and, along with trip end forecasts for 421 sites across the<br/>country, this indicated that there is almost certainly a positive case for constructing a<br/>significant number of new railway stations in the UK.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Ph.D.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Southampton

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Blainey, Simon Philip

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Preston, J.M.