Somakala Subbaraman, our student from the master’s programme in Environmental Engineering, presented her findings at the MATSim User Meeting (MUM) 2025 held at TUM in conjunction with the 13th Symposium of the European Association for Research in Transportation (hEART 2025).
In her study with the title “Modelling Public Transport Crowding Effects in MATSim”, Somakala demonstrated how MATSim can effectively model key public transport crowding effects, including travel discomfort, denied boarding and demand-supply imbalances, using an agent-based approach. By simulating individual-level interactions, the framework captures system-wide consequences such as route shifts, increased waiting times and bus bunching, which traditional macroscopic models often overlook. The findings highlight the need for careful parameterisation and the consideration of crowding effects for route choice to fully reflect the passenger dynamics on public transport systems.
Please check here the presentation and the final report. We thank Somakala for this wonderful collaboration!