Investigating the impact of dwell time on the reliability of urban light rail operations

The present study investigates the determinants of vehicle dwell time at stations in urban light rail networks. Using data collected from an on-board automatic passenger counting system of the tramway network of the French city of Nantes over a long period, the study performs graphical and statistical analyses enabling the identification of cause-and-effect relationships of a number of attributes on the dwell time and its reliability. The results confirm the significance of the boarding and alighting passenger volumes, as well as of the on-board passenger loading, on the dwell time. Additional effects on dwell time are found from the vehicle type (low- or high-floor), the time of day (peak, off-peak, inter-peak) and the location of the station (city centre, proximity to points of interest). Also, it is found that operations are not symmetrical, and dwell times tend to be higher in one direction than the other of the same line. Finally, the results suggest that dwell time reliability is lower for stations located further from the starting terminal, or for stations located in the city centre