Modelling impacts of adverse weather conditions on activity-travel pattern scheduling in multi-modal transit networks

In general, adverse weather has significant influence on individuals activity/travel choice behaviour and such influence is obviously greater in cities which suffer frequent rainy periods. Thus, the impacts of weather conditions should be taken into account in long-term transit service planning. In this paper, an activity-based network equilibrium model for scheduling daily activity-travel patterns (DATPs) in multi-modal transit networks under adverse weather conditions (with different rainfall intensities) is developed. The interdependency of individuals activity/travel choices and weather conditions are comprehensively investigated. In the proposed model, the DATP choice problem under adverse weather conditions is transformed into an equivalent static transit assignment problem by constructing a novel super-network platform. A rule-based algorithm is proposed to automatically generate the super-network taking into account the rain effects implicitly. The effects of adverse weather on different transit modes and different activities are explicitly modelled. An efficient solution algorithm without prior enumeration of DATPs is proposed for solving the DATP scheduling problem in multi-modal transit networks. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate application of the proposed model and the solution algorithm.