A short-turning bus schedule design for bus bunching alleviation

• Published in: Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies Vol. 15; pp. 2253 - 2272
• Main Authors: PAN, Longpai, ZHOU, Yu, MENG, Qiang, SUN, Bo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies 2024
• Subjects: Bus Bunching; Microscopic Traffic Simulation; Mixed-integer Nonlinear Programming Model; Short-turning Bus Schedule Design; Surrogate Optimization Algorithm
• ISSN: 1881-1124
• DOI: 10.11175/easts.15.2253

Bus bunching for public transport (PT) services is a phenomenon where buses scheduled at even intervals along a route bunch together forming platoons, undermining the reliability of the PT system. This study proposes a short-turning bus schedule design (SBSD) problem with the objective of minimizing the excess waiting time (EWT) of passengers and the operating cost of transit operators. The SBSD problem is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINP) model incorporating the microscopic traffic simulation based on PTV VISSIM mimicking bus operations considering road traffic conditions. The surrogate optimization algorithm (SOA) is utilized to solve the SBSD problem without an explicit expression. Numerical experiments have been conducted and have shown that the objective can be improved potentially by a 6-15% of cost reduction, evaluated within a sensible time frame. A real experiment of SBS Transit Route 53 in Singapore is modeled, and also produces an improved objective function.