Browsing by Author "Simancas, Willis"

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    Level of Pedestrian Stress in Urban Streetscapes
    (2022) Rodriguez-Valencia, Alvaro; Alberto Ortiz-Ramirez, Hernan; Simancas, Willis; Agustin Vallejo-Borda, Jose
    Several service and performance indicators (SPIs) have recently been developed to evaluate pedestrian infrastructures, such as different walkability indexes and pedestrian level of service (P-LOS). Given that stress has become a popular SPI for bicyclists (level of traffic stress [LTS]), this study addressed stress for pedestrians as an SPI by relating measurable attributes of different urban street segment environments with pedestrian perceived stress. A stress-based pedestrian SPI was proposed to classify street segments into four levels of pedestrian stress. A total of 1,043 pedestrians across 30 segments in Bogota were surveyed about their perceived stress. Multimodal traffic counts, location audits, and layout dimensions were collected in each segment to estimate an ordered probit model that explained four stress categories. Physical infrastructure attributes and traffic operational conditions were found to affect perceived stress at given locations. The similarities between the proposed stress index with the LTS and P-LOS are discussed, and the proposed SPI is applied to pedestrian infrastructure planning and design in light of sustainable transportation goals.
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    Understanding transit user satisfaction with an integrated bus system
    (2022) Rodriguez-Valencia, Alvaro; Ortiz-Ramirez, Hernan Alberto; Simancas, Willis; Vallejo-Borda, Jose Agustin
    Understanding the factors and drivers of user satisfaction with public transportation (PT) systems has been a subject of research for decades, as it provides insight into influencing ridership increases. This research addresses user satisfaction using SEM-MIMIC models to analyze three PT bus subsystems in the same city (Bogota Colombia): A Bus Rapid Transit, a formalized bus subsystem, and a semi-formalized one that operates simultaneously. After developing three independent models, we found the same three latent variables (LVs), namely subsystems "condition", "service", and "safety/security", in each one. However, the strength and significance of the direct and indirect effects among the three LVs vary from one subsystem to another. In general, satisfaction is initially based on a person's perception of the subsystem's condition and ends with his/her perception of the service, with safety and service being the mediating variables to explain satisfaction. Unlike previous studies, we were able to identify relationships among these three independent variables for each subsystem, allowing us to assess the direct and indirect effects on overall subsystem satisfaction. This research provides decision-makers with a broader understanding of how infrastructure, vehicles, operational attributes, and regulation processes influence user satisfaction through perceptions and how they can help improve the PT service for its users.