Modelling public transport route choice, with multiple access and egress modes

Public transport (PT) is important, because the current traffic system faces well known problems like congestion, environmental impact and use of public space. To be able to assess the effects of policy measures properly, it is necessary to model the behavior of the (PT) traveler in a realistic way. An aspect that lacks realism in a lot of current models is the rigid separation between modes: within the model a traveler cannot choose to switch between modes, so multimodal trips that combine a public transport trip with the car or with the bicycle are not (or at least not explicitly) taken into account, while the use of the bicycle as an access mode is very popular in the Netherlands, and getting more popular in other countries. Easy bike rental systems enable use as an egress mode as well. The use of the car as an access mode is very popular in the US. Furthermore, multiple routing is important, because different users have different preferences (i.e. a fast route or a route without a transfer). These two aspects are addressed in this paper, to achieve more realistic transit modelin