Investigation of vehicles of school and work transportation as new means of transport during off-peak hours

INVESTIGATION OF VEHICLES OF SCHOOL AND WORK TRANSPORTATION AS NEW MEANS OF TRANSPORT DURING OFF- PEAK HOURS (Ph.D. Thesis) Seda HATİPO?LU GAZI UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY September 2004 ABSTRACT After 1980's, subsequent need and demand exacerbated by the socioeconomic changes in the nation, led to substantial changes in the school and work transportation sector. Such developments paved the way to the institutionalization of the sector which once started as independent discrete ventures. In this era, parents chose to send their children to schools of higher quality and private schools further away than local schools by taking the advantage of and creating a steady demand for privately owned school transportation mode serving door-to-door between home and school. In the mean time, as a precaution to minimize time losses during commuting and to prevent late-shows, employers demanded shuttle services to provide home-to- work and work-to-home passenger transportation. Today, these services are provided during peak hours and vehicles are kept idle during the daytime causing inefficiencies. In this study, taking into account the number of vehicles and their idle times, a conceptual model in which these vehicles are considered as a means for demand responsive paratransit mode, for the city of Ankara, has been developed. Science Code : Keywords : school and work transport, demand responsive transport systems, travel demand management. Number of Pages : 137 Thesis Supervisor : Prof.Dr. Süleyman PAMPAL