Commuter Arrivals and Optimal Service in Mass Transit: Does Queuing Behavior at Transit Stops Matter?

摘要

This paper considers whether the optimal (second-best) mass-transit policy under a uniform-fare constraint is affected by passengers\u27 queuing disciplines, by comparing the first-in-first-out (FIFO) and the random-access queuing. We analyze the problem by extending the model of mass-transit in Kraus and Yoshida (JUE(2002)) to the case of random-access queuing. The model involves the optimal capacity and the number of trains as well as pricing. It is shown that, when the shadow value of a unit of waiting time exceeds that of a unit time of being late, the passengers\u27 queuing discipline does not have any effect on the optimal (second-best) mass-transit policy including the number of trains and runs, scheduling, and pricing.