The dissertation was defended at the public meeting of the Dissertation Defence Council of the Scientific Field of Transport Engineering in the Aula Doctoralis of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University at 10 a.m. on 25 April 2025.
The country's local (suburban) and long-distance public transport routes must meet the needs of residents and encourage greater use of the service. The research object is the organisation of public transport services in remote areas of Lithuania’s regions. The dissertation aims to develop a methodology for improving public transport services in the country’s regions, aimed at selecting areas more adaptable for demand-responsive public transport services. The work addressed the following main tasks: determining the most important criteria influencing passenger flows in the country regions, modelling the public transport network of the Lithuanian region, determining the limits of key criteria, and creating a methodology for regional public transport service. The dissertation consists of an introduction, three chapters and general conclusions, lists of references and the author’s publications on the topic of the dissertation. There are also seven annexes. The introduction presents the investigated problem and the object of research and describes the purpose and tasks of the paper, research methodology, scientific novelty, the practical significance of results and defended statements. The introduction ends with approval of the research findings and defining the structure of the dissertation. The first chapter presents the used literature. It describes the models of public transport organisation and management in foreign countries and analyses social exclusion in regions. It also highlights key differences in macromodel components between cities and regional public transport. Additionally, it includes an overview of experiences with demand-responsive public transport services. The second chapter lists the key factors, their criteria influencing public transport passenger flows in regions and the interrelationships between these criteria. For the case of a pilot region, an initial public transport service methodology is formulated and tailored to regions with low population density. The third chapter presents the validation of the methodology based on a Lithuanian region and the processing of the results. The chapter includes the improvement of the existing public transport service system in the pilot region, the identification of low public transport demand areas, and the proposed implementation of demand-responsive transport services in these zones. Seven articles were published focusing on the subject of the discussed dissertation: two in scientific journals with an Impact Factor (SCIE), three in conference proceedings, and two in other scientific journals. Five presentations on the subject were given at Lithuanian international conferences and one at German conferences.
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