This book shows how transit assignment models can be used to describe and predict the patterns of network patronage in public transport systems. It provides a fundamental technical tool that can be employed in the process of designing, implementing and evaluating measures and/or policies to improve the current state of transport systems within given financial, technical and social constraints. The book offers a unique methodological contribution to the field of transit assignment because, moving beyond "traditional" models, it describes more evolved variants that can reproduce:- intermodal networks with high- and low-frequency services;- realistic behavioural hypotheses underpinning route choice;- time dependency in frequency-based models; and- assumptions about the knowledge that users have of network conditionsthat are consistent with the present and future level of information that intelligent transport systems (ITS) can provide. The book also considers the practical perspective of practitioners and public transport operators who need to model and manage transit systems; for example, the role of ITS is explained with regard to their potential in data collection for modelling purposes and validation techniques, as well as with regard to the additional data on network patronage and passengers' preferences that influences the network-management and control strategies implemented. In addition, it explains how the different aspects of network operations can be incorporated in traditional models and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of doing so. Lastly, the book provides practical information on state-of-the-art implementations of the different models and the commercial packages that are currently available for transit modelling. Showcasing original work done under the aegis of the COST Action TU1004 (TransITS), the book provides a broad readership, ranging from Master and PhD students to researchers and from policy makers to practitioners, with a comprehensive tool for understanding transit assignment models.

Guido Gentile is Professor of Transport Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome, where he teaches "Transport Modeling and Planning". He is also President of the University Spin-off SISTeMA. He was born in 1971 in Rome, where he graduated cum laude as Civil Engineer in 1996. He obtained a Master in Corporate Finance at LUISS in 1996 and a PhD in Transport Engineering at Sapienza in 2000. He is enrolled in the Professional Engineering Association of Rome since 1996. His main fields of scientific and professional interests are: static and dynamic traffic assignment to road networks, simulation and management of public transport systems, travel demand and route choice models, city-logistics and network design, infomobility and intelligent transport systems. He is author of 100 scientific publications, most in the international literature, of 140 presentations at conferences, of several software and of well-known algorithm for the simulation of transport networks, e.g. LUCE and DUE that are also included into the platform VISUM by PTV and used all over the world. Since 2011 he has been Editor of the EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics, published by Springer. Since 2012 he is Associate Editor of Transportmetrica B: Transport Dynamics, published by Taylor & Francis. Since 2012 he has been Chair of the Cost Action: Modelling Public Transport Passengers in the Era of ITS. As vice president at PTV Group, Dr. Noekel is responsible for product management and software development of the PTV Vision Traffic Suite of transportation planning software, including PTV Visum (demand modelling), PTV Vissim (traffic microsimulation), PTV Optima (real-time traffic management). He participates in numerous collaborations with the academic community in transportation modelling and has published on diverse topics, particularly traffic assignment. Dr Noekel joined PTV Group in 1997 and has worked on numerous consultancy and software development projects in transportation planning and traffic engineering for more than 20 years. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Kaiserslautern and a M.Sc. in Computer Science and Operations Research from RWTH Aachen. Dr Noekel is Vice Chair of the EU COST Action "Modelling Public Transport Passenger Flows in the Era of ITS".