Optimization of bus operation system considering the passenger arrival pattern

Abstract

In this paper, we deal with a control strategy for solving the bus bunching effect. Previous studies assumed that the passengers’ arrival follows the Poisson process. However, if the passengers know the bus departure schedules in advance, they arrive at the stop in a non-uniform pattern. Therefore, we consider the non-uniform arrival pattern that occurs when the passengers determine their arrival time at the stop to minimize their waiting time based on the reliability of the buses’ scheduled departure time. It was experimentally shown that this arrival pattern induces the bus bunching. To solve this problem, we proposed a mathematical model that calculates the optimal holding time considering the passenger arrival pattern. The simulation experiments showed that the proposed model significantly reduce the headway variability compared to the existing heuristic control strategies. In addition, we observed that the effect of the bus control strategy gets greater as the passengers become more schedule-dependent. We confirmed the importance of increasing the passengers' reliability on the bus schedule as well as considering the passenger arrival pattern.