Journal of Korean Society of Transportation ISSN:1229-1366(Print) 2234-4217(Online) 대한교통학회지

Since inaccurate demand estimation for recent urban rail construction may result in financial burden to cities, precise prediction for operating cost as well as construction costs is necessary to avoid or reduce budget loss of the local or central government. The operating cost is directly related to the public fare and affect a policy to determine the rate system. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop an estimating model for reliable operating cost of urban railway. This study introduces a new model to estimate the operating cost with new variables. It provides a better prediction in accuracy and reliability compared to the existing model, considering the feature of urban railway. For verification of our model, railway operation data from a few cities for the last five years were comprehensively examined to determine variables that affect the operating cost. The operating cost was estimated in a dummy regression model using five independent variables, which were average distance between stations, daily trains distance, total passenger capacity of a train in a train, driving mode(manned/unmanned), and investment type(financial/private).