A Survey of Traditional and Customized Bus Transportation Planning Methodologies

Transportation planning is an area of public policy that is increasingly recognized for having a significant impact on human health and well-being. Passengers all across the world are choosing bus transit as one of the most cost-effective ways of transportation. The number of passengers who use this mode of transportation is steadily increasing. According to statistics, the bus was India's most popular mode of transportation in 2014. A bus was viewed as a mode of transportation by 66 percent of families in rural areas and 62 percent of households in urban areas. With increased demand, there is a concern about efficiently organizing this service. Because a lack of planning can generate major problems in the real world, such as traffic jams and high operating expenses, it is a source of concern for corporate and government entities who provide this service. In this paper, a review on various bus transit planning approaches and stages and methodologies used in each stage of the customized bus planning strategy is presented. This study will assist bus service organizing entities, whether private or public, in efficiently organizing bus service

Enabling In-Depot Automated Routing and Recharging Scheduling for Automated Electric Bus Transit Systems

The bus transit system is promising to enable electric and autonomous vehicles for massive urban mobility, which relies on high-level automation and efficient resource management. Besides the on-road automation, the in-depot automated scheduling for battery recharging has not been adequately studied yet. This paper presents an integrated in-depot routing and recharging scheduling (IDRRS) problem, which is modeled as a constraint programming (CP) problem with Boolean satisfiability conditions (SAT). The model is converted to a flexible job-shop problem (FJSP) and is feasible to be solved by a CP-SAT solver for the optimal solution or feasible solutions with acceptable performance. This paper also presents a case study in Shanghai and compares the results from the FJSP model and the first-come first-serve (FCFS) method. The result demonstrates the allocation of routes and chargers under multiple scenarios with different numbers of chargers. The results show that the FJSP model shortens the delay and increases the time conservation for future rounds of operation than FCFS, while FCFS presents the simplicity of programming and better computational efficiency. The multiple random input test suggests that the proposed approach can decide the minimum number of chargers for stochastic charging requests. The proposed method can conserve the investment by increasing the utilization of automated recharging devices, improving vehicles’ in-depot efficiency.

Bus Transit Network Structure Selection With Multiple Objectives

Bus transportation is the essential mode of public transportation available for intra-district movements in India. The planning of different stages of bus transportation planning is usually done in an ad-hoc manner on the basis of the experience of the operators. For a rational design of the bus transit system, it is essential to take into account the objectives of different interest groups. Selection of an appropriate network structure is an essential part of the planning process. In this paper, a model developed for generating a number of alternative network structures using link deletion concept is presented. One of these alternatives can be selected on the basis of the trade-off between the user and operator objectives. The model has been applied to a case study of bus transit network of Visakhapatnam region in Andhra Pradesh.

Operational Evaluation of a Throughabout to Give Priority to Public Transport at Standard Roundabouts

The presence of roundabouts in the central business districts (CBD) of cities can reduce the travel speed of bus rapid transit (BRT) along the radial routes. A throughabout is an unconventional and low-cost design in which the central island is split to provide exclusive lanes for major traffic streams. Although the operation of throughabout has been limitedly investigated for private transport, it has been less considered by designers for public transport and for increasing the speed of the BRT system. The current study aims to evaluate the effects of throughabouts on private and public transports and to compare the design with standard roundabouts and conventional intersections. The calibrated and validated results of the microsimulation tool (AIMSUN) indicated that the throughabout improved the travel time of both public and private transports through better use of the space and kept the traffic flowing at all volume levels. The travel speed of the BRT in the throughabout was remarkably stable in both signal-controlled and unsignalized intersections. The standard roundabout was the second-best design. The throughabout can be very helpful in corridors along which the demand for the bus transit is high and the system needs to receive priority.