01697661

Component

Provision of a reliable and convenient bus service is a vital component of any successful public transportation system. One of the important steps in this direction is to develop a bus schedule that can meet prevailing demand. A simple solution is to prepare a fixed bus schedule with a constant headway. However, as passenger demand varies over time and space, a fixed schedule with a constant headway may lead to inadequate number of buses during peak periods and under-utilization of the system in off-peak periods, which may not be beneficial for the operator. In addition to this, variability in traffic conditions may lead to irregularities in adhering to the predefined schedule, making the users wait longer or miss bus. To overcome these problems, the present study proposes a Demand and Travel Time Responsive (DTR) model to maximize the benefit of the operator by preparing an optimal schedule that can adapt to the variations in passenger demands and traffic conditions in real-time, subjected to minimizing the waiting time of the passengers, capacity constraints of the buses to achieve the maximum financial benefit as well as social satisfaction. For this, the study analyses the data received from real-time tracking devices that were fitted in a selected bus route in Chennai to keep track of the vehicles, identify their locations along routes to estimate the future states, compare them with the planned service, and to evaluate alternative measures to improve the performance of the system.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP050 Standing Committee on Bus Transit Systems.

19-02853

English

5p

2019

Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References

Bus transit operations; Demand; Passenger service; Real time information; Schedules and scheduling; Travel time

Flexible routes

Chennai (India)

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2019 Paper #19-02853

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 7 2018 9:33AM