Optimum headway for Transit Operation

Two conflicting objectives:

1. Service provider.... tries to maximize the utilization ( and thus to minimize the cost
of operation) ... consequently headway tends to increase
2. Passenger.... tries to minimize waiting time (and thus to minimize the cost
associated with travel time) ... headway tends to reduce

Total cost (C) associated with a transit operation = Cost of the service provider (Cs) + Cost
of the passenger (waiting time)(Cp)

The problem is to find out headway such that .... the total cost (C) is minimized

Let,
 Passenger volume per hour .... P (arriving at an uniform rate)
 RTT.....Tr
 Operating cost of TU = Wo/hour/TU
 Cost of waiting time of passenger = Wp per head per hour
 Headway = h
 Fleet size required = N
Then,
Cs = N * Wo = (Tr/h)*Wo
Cp = (h/2)*Wp*P
C = [(Tr/h)*Wo] + [(h/2)*Wp*P].... objective function to be minimized
Now,
dC/dh (C’) = (-1* Tr*Wo)/h2 + (Wp*P/2)..... find h ..... minimum value of C
and C’’ = (2* Tr*Wo)/h3 > 0
For a minimum C, C’ =0 .... thus, h = [2*Tr*Wo/Wp.P]0.5 ..... the optimum headway that
minimizes the total cost (C)