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.

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.

Complex machines can fail in complex ways. Often the nature of the fault can be determined only through the interpretation of machine behavior over time. This book presents a novel approach to the representation and recognition of temporally distributed symptoms. Existing diagnostic expert systems usually operate under a set of simplifying assumptions that limit their applicability. A common assumption is that the device to be diagnosed has a static behavior, with the relation between inputs and outputs constant over time. In most realistic application domains this assumption is violated and both the normal, intended function of the device and the potential malfunctions are complex behaviors over time. This book addresses the problem of systematically treating information about fault symptoms that are spread out over periods of time. These symptoms are characterized by a specific order of events, and in the general case a single snapshot of the device state does not suffice to recognize the symptoms. Instead one has to plan a measurement sequence that consists of several observations at more than one time point. Starting with a classification of various types of dynamic faulty behavior, the author identifies temporally distributed systems (TDSs) and designs a representation language that allows TDSs to be specified in a declarative manner. The definition of a successful match of a measurement sequence against a TDS specification is operationalized as an algorithm which plans such an observation sequence based on the TDS specification. The author demonstrates that his novel solution is a generic, paradigm-independent building block for diagnostic expert systems by embedding it into the frameworks of both an associative and a model-based diagnostic system. The book will be valuable both for researchers working on applications of temporal reasoning and prospective users of technical expert systems.