What the project is about:

 

Train overcrowding has been associated with a number of negative outcomes, including psychological stress, negative health effects, negative behavioural reactions, and spillover effects. However, there is little agreement on the appropriate demand management strategies to deal with the increasing passenger numbers, particularly on rail services in Malaysia. To address this need, a two-phase study was conducted with the aims of (i) identifying a set of demand management strategies that addresses growing passenger numbers, and (ii) to examining the feasibility, effectiveness, and cost of these strategies, as perceived by the stakeholders.

 

In the first phase, six strategies related to pricing, ten strategies about service quality, and six strategies associated with policy have been identified through systematic review of the existing literature.

 

In the second phase, participants ranked three sets of demand management strategies (i.e., pricing, service quality, and policy), which was obtained from a systematic review of literature, based on their feasibility, effectiveness, and cost. Using Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (Kendall’s W), findings showed weak agreement among participants across all strategies on their feasibility, effectiveness, and cost. The findings indicate that high priority was placed on four strategies (i.e., free early bird incentives, discounted early bird or off peak fares, increasing train frequency, and travel demand management programme), implying their potential applications for peak smoothing in Malaysian urban rail systems. 

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The team

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• Project Leader: Nor Diana Mohd Mahudin

• Research Assistant: Shamim Imtiaz

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