Research on Route Deviation Transit Operation Scheduling—A Case Study in Suburb No. 5 Road of Harbin

• Published in: Sustainability 2022-01, Vol.14 (2), p.633
• Main Authors: Sun, Xianglong, Liu, Sai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Buses; Design; Deviation; Heuristic; Operating costs; Operation scheduling; Passengers; Public transportation; Relaxation time; Scheduling; Search algorithms; Suburban areas; Suburbs; Sustainability; Travel; Travel demand; Vehicles
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su14020633

Route deviation transit is a flexible “door-to-door” service method that combines the efficiency of conventional public transport modes and the flexibility of demand response modes, meeting the travel needs of people with low travel density and special groups. In this paper, the minimum value of the sum of vehicle operating cost and passenger travel cost was the optimal goal, and the RDT multi-vehicle operation scheduling model was constructed. Taking the available relaxation time as the control parameter of the RDT system and considering the insertion process of the random travel demand of the passengers during the operation process, we used a heuristic search algorithm to solve the scheduling model. This paper took Suburb No. 5 Road of Harbin as an example, using MATLAB to simulate the RDT operation scheduling model to verify the stability and feasibility of the RDT system under different demands. The results showed that under different demand conditions, the system indicators such as passenger travel time, waiting time, and vehicle mileage in the RDT system fluctuated very little, and the system performance was relatively stable. Under the same demand conditions, the per capita cost of the RDT system was 5.9% to 10.8% less than that of the conventional bus system. When the demand ρ is 20~40 person/hour, the RDT system is more effective than the conventional bus for the 5 bus in the suburbs of Harbin.