Browsing by Author "Thilakshan, T"

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An Empirical Study on User Perception of Electric Bus Integration into Public Transit Networks
(Transport Engineering Division Department of Civil Engineering, 2024) Thilakshan, T; Sugathapala, T.; Bandara, S.; Pasindu, H.R.
Electric buses have emerged as a notable sustainable solution in transportation, garnering considerable attention for their potential to address environmental concerns. The global impetus towards adopting electric buses has witnessed exponential growth, with numerous countries integrating support for electric bus deployment into their national policies. This study evaluates user perceptions regarding the adoption of electric buses, focusing on individuals utilizing both current private and public transit modes. Recognizing passengers as primary stakeholders, their acceptance of electric buses holds significant importance for the efficacy of such initiatives. The objective is to incentivize a transition from private to public transit modes without compromising the existing user base. To achieve this, a questionnaire survey was conducted among potential users to ascertain their perceptions and offer insights to policymakers and authorities regarding pertinent concerns and avenues for enhancement. Employing a Likert scale, the survey assessed the significance of various factors and attributes associated with electric bus adoption. Subsequently, Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) was employed to analyze the gathered data, accounting for multiple criteria and subjective user preferences. The study's findings reflect a predominantly positive inclination towards adopting electric buses, underlining the importance of meticulous planning and implementation to prevent any disruption or deterioration of the existing transit network.
item: Conference-Full-text
Analysis of passenger perception on quality of service of railway transportation: coastal railway line, Sri Lanka
(IEEE, 2023-12-09) Thilakshan, T; Saranjan, P; Fernando, GVK; Bandara, JMSJ; Abeysooriya, R; Adikariwattage, V; Hemachandra, K
The study focuses on assessing passenger perceptions of the service quality of the Sri Lankan Railways, focusing on the Coastal Railway Line in Sri Lanka. To determine areas for development and assess passenger satisfaction levels in terms of service quality, the study uses a questionnaire survey and interviews. The study considers important factors that affect passenger satisfaction, including air conditioning, seating comfort, and availability, the availability and usability of doors and windows, restroom amenities, and informational offerings. In order to increase overall passenger satisfaction, the study identifies the need to improve the level of punctuality, cleanliness, safety, comfort, and customer service. The Coastal Railway Line can become a more dependable, effective, and passenger-focused means of transportation by addressing these issues. Policymakers, transportation authorities, and other stakeholders can use the research findings to adopt the necessary improvements and actions that are in line with customer expectations. The ultimate objective is to support Sri Lanka's development of a viable and passenger-focused rail network, delivering a great travel experience for all rail customers. The railway system can foster a more welcoming environment for passengers and support the general expansion of the transportation industry with enhancements in these areas.
item: Conference-Abstract
Analysis of the level of safety of public transport in a ‘sustainable development goals’ perspective in the national context
(Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, 2019-09) Thilakshan, T; Bandara, JMSJ; Pasindu, HR
In 2015, Sri Lanka along with 192 member countries of the United Nations identified the timeliness of the concept of ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (hereforth referred to as SDGs) and mutually expressed their desire to work individually and collectively to achieve the SDGs by 2030 post the Millennium Development Goals tenure from 2000 to 2015. It can be observed that the diverse nature of the context of the goals and their targets is a cross cutting concern dissecting many sectors and concerns listed by the 17 goals and 169 targets. Sustainable Transportation in the context of the United Nations has been classified into five dimensions: Accessibility, Affordability, Safety, Security and Environmental concerns. In this context, Public Transport plays a significant role in the sustainable transportation spectrum. Public Transport Safety is analyzed in this study in a global and national perspective in the context of the overall safety in transportation. The study narrows down to the concept of Public Transport safety which is identified as the one of the largest negative concerns in the current arena with a large number of commuters using the same mode at a given point of time involving high human intervention. Two targets listed in the SDGs give direct leverage to Road safety which also apply in the case of Public Transport: SDG target 3.6 - Halve the number of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2020 and SDG target 11.2 - Provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all by 2030. The Global Sustainable Transport Conference which was held on the 27th and 28th of November 2016 in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan highlighted the importance of sustainable transport in promoting economic and social development while protecting the environment and the main concern was the large number of annual deaths from road traffic accidents along with the environmental impacts of transportation. In both regards, Public Transport plays an important role and the safety assurance of Public Transport is one of the main dominating factors in attracting people to Public Transport modes, which mainly constitutes buses and trains in the national context. Thus, the study identifies the importance of Public Transport safety to achieve sustainable transportation and SDGs while analyzing the current status of Public Transport using available data and statistics in a national perspective. Apart from studying the pattern of Public Transport in terms of deaths, injuries and related parameters, more concern in the study focusses on the post 2015 SDG timeframe to evaluate the impact of the SDG framework in the context of road safety and the practicality of achieving the SDGs: target 3.6 by 2020 and target 11.2 by 2030 in the perspective of Public Transport. 90 percent of road traffic deaths occur in low and middle-income countries even though the countries count to only 54 percent of the world’s vehicles percentage. Sri Lanka is no different in terms of the crucial impact of road safety and analyzed data from the National road safety council of the Ministry of Transport and the Sri Lanka Police show no decrement in terms of road safety accidents and resulting deaths, injuries and damages. The analysis looks into the impact of Public Transport to the overall safety scenario and the steps that needs to be taken in dealing with Public Transport based safety issues with utmost importance due to the large number of lives involved in the scenario and the attraction factor of people towards using Public Transport as an alternative for their private vehicles. The number of private passenger transport buses and Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) involved in the accidents and their rate of involvement in an annual and monthly timeframe is analyzed along with the accident type. Thus, an analysis on public transport buses is carried out in an individual and overall (Private and SLTB buses) manner for better understanding. An analysis framework of the Railway sector and accidents in a periodic timeframe along with the category of railway accidents involving the railways is included in the study. Thus, the study analyzes the overall Public Transport in the national context with respect to safety and the reasons involved in the accidents along with evaluating the current position of the transport sector in terms of sustainable transportation in terms of public transport and achieving the SDGs in the national context.
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Analyzing key determinants affecting electric vehicle adoption in Sri Lanka: a comprehensive evaluation
(IEEE, 2023-11-09) Saranjan, P; Thilakshan, T; Bandara, JMSJ; Abeysooriya, R; Adikariwattage, V; Hemachandra, K
This study examines the factors influencing the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in Sri Lanka using a Multi- Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) approach. The online questionnaire received responses from 210 participants, providing valuable insights into their preferences and expectations. The Likert scale was employed to assess the importance of various factors and attributes associated with EV adoption. MAUT was applied to analyze the collected data, taking into account multiple criteria and subjective user preferences. The analysis highlighted the significance of vehicle performance, financial factors, government policies, environmental concerns, product knowledge, social influence, and infrastructure availability in shaping EV adoption. Furthermore, the study also identified the importance of specific attributes within each factor and the preferences of the different respondent groups. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the factors driving EV adoption and guide policymakers and stakeholders in promoting sustainable transportation solutions in Sri Lanka.
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Application of intelligent transport system (ITS) in passenger boarding and alighting surveys
(Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, 2020-12) Vidanapathirana, C; Thilakshan, T; Sharic, S; Bandara, S; Perera, HLK
Bus passenger transportation essentially requires continuous planning, evaluation and upgrading to maintain its level of service. Necessary traffic data including passenger counts, bus stop locations and corresponding demand, speed, relevant functional and infrastructure information have to collect regularly by the authorities to conduct such studies. Though there exist various conventional approaches for data collection, most of them are regarded as less effective in the present context. Global Positioning System (GPS) based applications in intelligent transport systems have proven to be efficient and cost-effective in identifying and tracking the geolocation of connected elements. Hence, with the intention of narrowing the technological gap, a holistic system that embodies both hardware components and software applications were developed for real-time data acquisition with remote access. This multidisciplinary engineering solution collects data mainly from two sources. Firstly, a mobile application was developed to facilitate the collection of trip-specific data. For every journey, at the departure, the surveyor can create a new trip in the app and input the origin, destination, date, surveyor’s position (front door, back door or middle door) and characteristics of the vehicle. Then a recurring sequence of features appears on the screen to record the GPS locations of bus stops, boarding and alighting counts at every bus stop, passenger demographics and the characteristics of each bus stop. All the data are transmitted to a server in real-time for storage and remote retrieval purposes. The surveyors are provided with unique login identities to improve the credibility of the survey. Every journey is labelled with a system-generated identifier which can be changed if necessary, to facilitate conducting surveys by placing two surveyors at the front and back doors of the same bus. On such occasions, retrieval of data can be carried out corresponding to the journey ID. Secondly, a handheld portable electronic device which is capable of locating its position at regular intervals was developed with single-board computers (e.g.: Raspberry Pi), GPS receivers, data communication module and rechargeable power sources. An interactive display similar to a mobile phone is available in this device. The surveyor can input the details about each journey before the departure. When the journey begins, the automatically recognized realtime GPS coordinates and travelling speed are displayed to the user. A single-click feature to log waypoints with an accuracy of 2.5m was also provided. This serves as a facility to locate bus stops, bottlenecks, intersections, or any other parameter as expected in the survey. These data are also sent to the same server and can be visualized through the front-end user interface. This approach can be directly utilized in assisting annual fare reviews incorporating both the cost component and income component eliminating past barriers. The data helps in developing driving cycles and thus fuel consumption and other cost parameters can be identified involved in bus services. The boarding and alighting surveys reflect the income components via the collected data. Thus, the calculation for fare review revisions become relevant and reliable with a good rationale and justifiable outcome helping three stakeholders (related authorities, passengers and bus owners/employees). This can be a fair play fare platform to all involved entities. The quality and level of service of public transit can be improved using this technological introduction including route requirements, increasing or decreasing supply as per the demand, improving and altering timetables (scheduling services) and restructuring bus stop locations and level of service of bus stops/terminals with available data based on demand and usage. The results that can be tabulated in terms of data via the ITS incorporated approach can be utilized for analysis with effective outcomes. It is very important to attain the quality of data along with a considerable quantity. This approach helps in establishing healthy quality data over the conventional methodology in Passenger Boarding and Alighting Surveys. The outcomes from analysis of the available data can be utilized with a higher acceptance in inclusion for required transportation applications. The data security and storage phases provide high effectiveness in comparison to conventional technology redundant approaches. A digital platform can facilitate easy quick data retrieval without having to waste considerable time and effort. In a sustainable perspective, the inclusion of technology into the surveys and its process helps in the reduction of waste and usage of resources increasing environmentally prominent actions in terms of the survey process and outcomes. This technique is deemed the way forward of surveys in transportation engineering since it has a low margin for error unless it is a technical malfunction. With the use of highly reliable and state of the art technology, better levels of precision and accuracy can increase the validity of decision making in the industry. This approach which is initially implied to be applied in public bus transport services can be extended to other public transit forms such as railways with minor parametric changes and can be developed further into a passenger transport analytics platform.
item: Conference-Full-text
An approach to identify bottlenecks in road networks using travel time variations: a case study in the city of Colombo and suburbs
(IEEE, 2020-07) Thilakshan, T; Rajapaksha, G; Bandara, S; Edussooriya, C; Weeraddana, CUS; Abeysooriya, RP
Bottlenecks in road networks are the main contributing factor in terms of traffic congestion in urban areas and thus, identification of bottlenecks and introduction of relevant remedies are important in easing the traffic congestion especially in the case of developing countries where funding for new transport infrastructure projects is a major factor of concern. This study discusses on identification of bottlenecks using crowdsource real- time travel time data which is more effective in terms of collection and usage in analysis. The usual travel time collection process is thus replaced by using Google Maps API matrix. Shortest travel time and travel distance paths among main origin and destinations are analyzed and the contrast in shortest distance path not being the shortest travel time path brings an important consideration of the reasons associated mainly due to presence of bottlenecks which needs to be identified and rectified for better road user experience. After a macro level approach in the identification process, certain transportation indices such as Congestion Index, Delay Rate Index and Travel Rate Ratio in a meso and micro level analysis perspective are utilized to ensure the identification of critical bottlenecks along minimum distance paths in the road network of main roads.
item: Conference-Abstract
Barriers in adoption and operation of electric buses into the existing public transit network
(Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, 2021-10) Thilakshan, T; Sugathapala, T; Bandara, S; Perera, HLK
Transportation has been identified as a major contributor in terms of increase in air pollution and related impacts resulting in climate change and global warming amongst other threats to the world and people. The nature of transportation related pollution has been caused by increasing motorization along with the absence of targeted policies especially in developing countries and frameworks for cleaner transportation options. Many types of measures to fight transportation related pollution are adopted globally including modal shift towards public transport, electrification, low-carbon fuels and energy vectors, demand management, innovation and upscaling, and improved design, operations and planning of transport systems. Electrification of vehicles has been globally accepted as a transfer of high potential due to the absence of tailpipe emission and the possibility to generate electricity from renewable energy sources has more potential to make electric vehicles cleaner in an overall context. Sustainable transportation mainly comprises of development of public transit and transfer of private vehicle users to public transit modes. It is evident that public transit is one of the most preferred sustainable options in transport but it’s contribution to the overall transport emission scenario is significant at present, especially in developing countries, due to higher model share. The use of cleaner technology in public transport can make a substantial impact on the reduction in emissions. This study concentrates on public bus services and the replacement with or introduction of electric buses which is currently being initiated globally. The adoption of electric buses (e-buses) includes its set of positive outcomes but is a challenge in the initiation and implementation process. The adoption of e-buses is not an easy transition which is impacted by a number of barriers including high initial procurement costs, issues related to charging and related infrastructure development, still relatively new/novel in terms of technology, scarcity of skilled labour, unavailability of data amongst others. The outcome from the study with respect to the barriers and the related mitigation measures to facilitate adoption and operation of electric buses is attained via a comprehensive review of the available sources published including research papers, national/non-governmental reports and relating documents which discuss on the air quality levels especially in the urban context and the contribution of the transport sector to the overall air pollution ratio. This study identifies the barriers, elaborates the reasons behind the barriers and recommends mitigation strategies to accommodate these barriers in the best possible manner to ensure transition to electric buses can be facilitated in a smooth manner with no considerable impacts to any stakeholders. The infrastructure related to electric buses operation is a major part of operating a viable electric bus network. Thus, identifying the stakeholders and the related barriers in adoption and operation of e-buses, development of effective operational strategies and development of an efficient evaluation mechanism are important parts of the e-buses framework considered in this study. The study discusses the identification of the right technology & viable business models, the framework for the development of an optimization model for electric bus operation subject to resource constraints which include planning of routes, 10 development of schedules and charging intervals in compliance with the available infrastructure. Outcomes from the study are expected to facilitate and educate operators of electric buses in the public transit network with the positioning of electric buses in the right framework so that the service can be provided with no disruptions to adoption and operation along with the prime goal of maximizing the expected outcome of the total reduction of emission and promotion of e-buses in an economically viable manner.
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Implementation of electric buses into an existing public transit network: a Sri Lankan perspective
(IEEE, 2023-11-09) Thilakshan, T; Sugathapala, AGT; Bandara, JMST; Abeysooriya, R; Adikariwattage, V; Hemachandra, K
On par with the rapid motorization in the national and international context, fuel consumption and emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have become major challenges in the contemporary automotive industry. It is important to identify the core of sustainable transportation in adapting to new measures. Even though electric vehicles are sustainable the entire concept of mitigating transport issues is minimal. The option that is considered viable in the transport scenario is the electrification of public transit which has been analyzed in the Sri Lankan context throughout the study. United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on ‘Affordable and Clean Energy’ align directly with the aim and concept of the research study. Several approaches are utilized worldwide to mitigate fuel consumption and emission whereas Sri Lanka is still in the initial stages, especially in the adoption of e-mobility (including electric buses). Thus, the study analyzes the factors including financial, political and social attributes that have led to the slow progression of implementation of electric buses in the e-mobility context and the way forward to facilitate the adoption process in a successful manner via a clear Sri Lankan review of the current e-bus scenario and the need to accelerate the implementation process with stringent guidelines.
item: Conference-Full-text
Study of the impact of electric vehicles on fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emission scenarios in Sri Lanka
(IEEE, 2020-07) Gajanayake, S; Thilakshan, T; Sugathapala, T; Bandara, S; Weeraddana, C; Edussooriya, CUS; Abeysooriya, RP
On par with the rapid motorization, fuel consumption and emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have become major challenges in the contemporary automotive industry. With a registered vehicle fleet of around 7.7 million road-vehicles and with an average survival rate of approximately 70%, Sri Lanka claims to an active vehicle fleet of around five million as of 2017. It can conspicuously be cited that 92% of the entire active fleet consists of Light Duty Vehicles which can be defined as the road-vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating less than 3.5 tons. United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) state ‘Affordable and clean energy as its 7th goal under which the target 7.3 is ‘doubling the improvement in energy efficiency’ directly aligns with the aim of the research study. Out of several approaches to mitigate the impacts of fuel consumption and emissions, electrification of the existing fleet and opting for electric vehicles as a new potential vehicle can be opted. The study analyses on the impact of electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers and cars on the fuel consumption and emission of GHGs in the national context forecasting on the future trends with increase in electric dominance to the traditional internal combustion engine vehicle.