Ashish Verma
Research Scholar, Transportation Systems Engg., Dept. of Civil Engg.
IIT Bombay, Powai Mumbai-76, India.
Ph: 91-22-25767329
Fax: 91-22-25767302 / 25723480
E-mail: rsashu@civil.iitb.ac.in
S. L. Dhingra
Professor of Transportation Systems Engineering, Dept. of Civil Engg.
IIT Bombay, Powai Mumbai-76, India.
Ph: 91-22-25767329
Fax: 91-22-25767302 / 25723480
E-mail: dhingra@civil.iitb.ac.in
Introduction
During the second half of the last century, urban population in India had grown enormously. This has resulted in a steady increase in number of cities with a population of one million and above from 5 in 1951 to 35 in 2001. This level of urbanization has brought in its wake its own problems, especially with regard to its impact on the infrastructure facilities. The urban transportation systems have come under heavy strain affecting the quality of life of urban dwellers. Public transport facilities provided by buses are grossly inadequate to meet the increased travel demand and to provide a good level of service. In such situation, planning of higher order (rail based) mass transit system is essential. The first step in this process is to identify the corridor for the new system. Conventionally, the new rail transit corridors are identified based on land availability, and/or planner's judgement, and then its ridership estimates are made using various techniques, for instance stated preference (SP) technique. However, in many cases these estimates prove to be much higher than the actual patronage observed resulting in huge revenue losses (Bodell 2002). Moreover, such differences in forecast and actual patronage can also be attributed to many other reasons, like lack of integration with other public transport services, ease of station access/ egress (and connectivity with major land uses generating
