Passenger Rail Service Comfortability in Kuala Lumpur Urban Transit System
Rail transit transportation system is among the public transportation network in 
Kuala Lumpur City. Some important elements in establishing this system are ticket price, 
operation cost, maintenance implications, service quality and passenger’s comfortability. The 
level of passenger’s comfortability in the coach is important to be considered by the relevant 
authorities and system operators in order to provide comfort and safety to passengers. The 
objective this research is to study some parameters that impact the comfortability of passengers 
and to obtain feedbacks from passengers for different rail transit system. Site observations were 
conducted to obtain data such as noise, vibration, speed and coach layouts which will be 
verified by using the passenger feedback outcomes. The research will be focused in and around 
the Kuala Lumpur City for the duration of 10 months. Four rail transit systems were being 
considered, i.e. Train Type A (LRA), Train Type B (LRB), Train Type C (MRL) and Train 
Type D (CTR). Data parameters obtained from field observations were conducted in the rail 
coaches during actual operation using apparatus among others the sound level meter (SLM), 
vibration analyzer (VA) and the global positioning system (GPS). Questionnaires were 
prepared as passenger feedback instrument, focusing on the level of comfortability in rail 
coaches. The outcomes of these analyses showed that CTR was the best and most comfortable 
coach, followed by LRA, LRB and MRL. Using the passenger feedbacks (MBP) it was also 
found that the ranking values for the railway transit system using Rail Coach Comfortability 
(RCC) is RCC (MBP) were the same as the outcomes using the RCC (parameters). In 
conclusion, it was found that this research has successfully determined the level of 
comfortability as determined in its aim and objectives. From this research, it is hoped that the 
relevant authorities will continue to find ways to enhance the comfortability and safety of its 
train coaches especially its passengers and the community at large.
An analysis of passengers’ ride needs of urban rail transit services: application of quality function deployment
This study aims to suggest using the interpretation type of deployment of quality function deployment (QFD) as a methodology to understand the passengers’ needs when they situate in the train cars of urban rail, using the East Rail Line (ERL) in Hong Kong as a case study. The result shows that behaved environment and safe stand are the two most important ride needs demanded by the everyday ordinary passengers of the rail line. In addition to this, the members of the study team reflected that the deployment process has greatly helped them on acquiring a thorough understanding of the passengers’ needs, which is very essential for deriving innovative solutions. Besides the rail company could make use of the case study for improving its train ride quality, the suggested methodology is applicable to understand the passengers’ ride needs of other kinds of public transport as well as the recipient needs of those public services that are of similar nature.
HSR Station Location Choice and its Local Land Use Impacts on Small Cities: A Case Study of Aveiro, Portugal☆
According to the Trans-European HSR network planning, in Portugal, Aveiro HSR station will be an important rail hub, of which the current planned location is distant from the city center without any existing public transport service to the urban area. Based on the current urban transport network and HSR planning, this paper examines two proposed HSR station location alternatives in and away from Aveiro city, with various travel times to the station by different travel modes. In this study, by consulting the evidences of land use impacts on Ciudad Real in Madrid-Seville HSR line of Spain as a benchmark model, we develop a land cover agent-based model to simulate the potential urban land use impacts on Aveiro city with various station location scenarios, according to the improvement of regional accessibility and population growth in each square land cell as individual decision-maker. The obtained results from this work reveals the positive impacts on land use development intensities of Aveiro city if the HSR station is located in the same place as the current rail station. Nonetheless, this paper also yields that the city of Aveiro hardly receive any benefits if the station is located away from the city center. A deceleration of land use development is also a possible consequence depending on the attractiveness of the new HSR station.