OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
JUAN CARLOS MUÑOZ
RICARDO GIESEN
Department of Transport
Engineering and Logistics,
Pontificia Universidad Católica
de Chile, Santiago, Chile
INTRODUCTION
Public transportation systems pose a highly
complex set of challenges for the analyst
that stem fundamentally from their sheer
size. The task of scheduling a transit net-
work involves determining the operations of
thousands of vehicles and drivers making
daily trips, often numbering in the millions.
A prime example is the Interligado system
in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which handles 9 million
trips per day on approximately 14,000 vehi-
cles. In the United States, more than 20 cities
operate fleets of over 1000 buses [1]. The
design, planning, and operation of a transit
system must also address an array of other
considerations including the structure of the
network, its coexistence with other existing
transportation systems, the congestion cre-
ated by its use (which in turn effects service
levels), and the autonomy on travel decisions
of users, the system’s lifeblood.
In light of these considerations, transit
systems are typically analyzed from the
opposing perspectives of demand and supply.
Demand
The demand for transit trips arises from
the spatially distributed needs of individuals
in accessing destinations at times that may
be specific (e.g., travel to work) or flexible
(e.g., shopping trips) and for which there is
a certain maximum willingness to pay. This
demand typically has a spatial and temporal
structure that exhibits time-of-day variations
that are clearly marked off into peak and off-
peak periods. How demand translates into
Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science, edited by James J. Cochran
Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1
actual trips depends on the levels of service
supplied by the transit system (and alterna-
tive transportation modes, if any) and how
they are perceived by users. If service lev-
els are deficient, some potential trips shift
to alternative modes or may not even be
made at all. Any trip demand study thus
requires an understanding of how demand
is distributed across the service area, how
it breaks down across different user socioe-
conomic strata, what transportation modes
are available for each user (taking account
of motorization rates), what are the purposes
of the trips, and what attributes of the tran-
sit and alternative system services impact
users’ decisions (e.g., walking time, wait time,
in-vehicle time, number of transfers, fare,
comfort, reliability, safety, security, level of
information, and seat availability).
Supply
Transit supply is expressed by the availabil-
ity of services or routes to those willing to
travel. Each service has a specific starting
and ending place and follows a sequence of
stops. Also, each service has a load limit (pas-
senger capacity) and is therefore subject to
congestion, implying that service levels begin
to decline as usage increases. Congestion on
public transit systems is manifested in terms
of wait time increases due to fully loaded
vehicles passing up waiting riders, longer
boarding and alighting times at stops or sta-
tions, deterioration of comfort level aboard
vehicles, and so on.
Most urban transit systems coexist with
other transportation modes. The road infras-
tructure required by surface transit modes
is often shared with flows of cars, motorcy-
cles, bicycles, and trucks, complicating the
design of transit networks and impacting its
performance.
The sequence of decisions constituting the
transit operations planning process for the
supply of service is depicted by the flowchart
in Fig. 1, adapted from Ceder and Wilson
[2] and Ceder [3]. In practice, the boundaries
between the various stages are somewhat
2 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

Problem parameters Problems Results

Network topology and

Strategic
characteristics Set of services
Network and route (routes), interchanges,
design and terminals
Fare structure and
budget constraints

Demand
Characteristics Fleet size requirement
Frequency setting
Service standards and Service frequency for
additional constraints Fleet sizing each time period
Route travel times for Timetable Departure and arrival

Tactical
each time period development times for buses
on each route

Route and deadhead Fleet size per type of

travel time Vehicle scheduling vehicle

Operational
distributions
Vehicle schedules

Work and union rules

Payment structure Driver scheduling Driver schedules

Relief points

Control
Distribution recovery
Real-time control plans

Figure 1. Transit operation planning process.

blurred and the process is enriched by feed-
back on previous decisions. Feedback is also
employed in analyzing the impacts on subse-
quent stages of modifications to earlier ones.
According to this scheme, the design and
analysis of a public transit system can be
structured into four decision levels as follows.
Strategic decisions are those which are
difficult to modify later, at least for relatively
lengthy periods. Examples of such decisions
are the transit mode (e.g., BRT versus LRT
versus Metro); the type of vehicle to acquire
(capacity); the structure of services to be
offered; and, at a lower level, the location
of stations and stops along the routes.
Tactical decisions are those that hold over
the medium term and are revised anywhere
from monthly to half-yearly. They include
adjusting service frequencies at each period,
modifying fares, and offering operational
variations on services such as deadheading,
expressing, and short turning. In a two-way
service, when demand for service is signif-
icantly imbalanced, a deadhead operation
could prove beneficial. In such a case, transit
vehicles would operate normally, loading
passengers, on the high-demand direction
and return empty (and as fast as possible,
maybe using a different path) on the opposite
direction. Such a scheme increases the supply
where it is most needed while decreasing it in
the low-demand direction, allowing for a bal-
anced occupation rate of the vehicles in both
directions. An express service is a service that
skips some predefined stops, offering a fast
trip to its passengers. A short-turning service
associated with a certain route consists of
providing a shorter service that operates only
 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
in a section of the route with the purpose of
increasing supply in its busiest section.
Operational decisions, such as drivers’
shifts, and route and vehicle assignments,
typically occur in the short term (daily basis).
Finally, control decisions define the sys-
tem’s recovery response to the inevitable dis-
ruptions that upset service schedules such as
absent drivers, vehicle breakdowns, services
running late, vehicle bunching, and so on.
In this article we discuss how operations
research provides answers to the problems
confronting each type of decision. The text is
structured around the four decision-making
levels: strategic or long term in the section
titled ‘‘Strategic Decisions,’’ tactical or
medium term in the section titled ‘‘Tactical
Decisions,’’ operational or short term in
the section titled ‘‘Operational Decisions,’’
and disruption response or real-time control
in the section titled ‘‘Real-Time Control.’’
A deeper perspective of all these issues can
be found in Vuchic [4].
STRATEGIC DECISIONS
This decision level deals with questions relat-
ing to the formal design of a new and complete
transit system (a ‘‘greenfield’’ project) or the
modification of an existing one. An example
of a city designed and implemented from the
ground up is Brasilia, created in the mid-
twentieth century, but it was initially mostly
designed for cars. Other cities have faced the
challenge of drastically changing a transit
system already in place [5]. In either sit-
uation, strategic decision making needs to
address the following questions:
1. The market structure that will gov-
ern the system. How many operators
will participate in the system? Will
it be based on private operators? Do
you expect operators to compete for the
passengers? What role will the govern-
ment have? Different cities have tried
different approaches, from full deregu-
lation and fully privately operated to a
centralized system run by the govern-
ment. In between, there are centrally
operated systems with private opera-
tors such as Transmilenio in Bogota. In
3
addition, these decisions are influenced
by the institutional framework chosen
by the government, for example, dif-
ferent agencies in charge of different
modes (e.g., buses and metro) or a sin-
gle agency in charge of the complete
system, such as transport for London.
The answers to these questions prob-
ably have significant impacts on the
systems costs and the quality of service
faced by the users.
2. The transportation modes that will con-
figure the system (metro, light rail,
BRT, and regular buses). For surface
modes, it is important to define the
level of interaction that the system
will have with other modes, partic-
ularly private cars. The more exclu-
sive is the transit right-of-way and the
smoother is the boarding and alighting
process, the higher will be the vehicle
speeds, generating significant benefits
in terms of level of service to users.
Also essential is the definition of the
type of energy to be used by the vehi-
cles, since once decided it can be very
costly to change. Note that per passen-
ger transported, the transit system is
less polluting than cars; so it is intrin-
sically associated with a more sustain-
able motorized urban mobility. Still, in
many cities the transit system as a
whole is a major actor in the generation
of pollution (atmospheric and acoustic).
3. The type of route structure of the
transit network. This decision is inti-
mately linked to the level of fare and
operational integration between the
routes. If there is no fare integration,
many of the routes will tend to be
designed to cross the entire area served
so that most riders can reach their
destinations paying a single fare. Such
routes tend to be inefficient given that
along most of their length, vehicle load
factors are relatively low. This oversup-
ply of underutilized vehicle kilometers
can be reduced by adopting a sys-
tem design that ensures integration
between routes. Typically, the design
is a trunk-and-feeder system in which
trunk services cover large distances
4 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
at high speeds and high vehicle load
factors while feeder services shuttle to
and from the trunk lines, picking up
riders at their origin points and deliv-
ering them at their final destinations.
This setup significantly reduces fleet
and operating costs but forces users
to transfer. It also requires a road
infrastructure and right-of-way that
enables high operating speeds along
transit corridors with stops or stations
that can efficiently handle transfers on
a large scale. Varying levels of route
integration are observed in transit
systems around the world, including
total competition among different
vehicles on a single route, competition
among different routes, competition
among different modes, and total fare
and operational integration.
4. The specific routes to be supplied. It is
necessary to determine for each route
its actual path or course, the type of
vehicle, and the service frequency. At
this decision level the analysis is typ-
ically confined to the highest demand
periods of the day.
In responding to these challenges, plan-
ners attempt to identify a configuration that
maximizes social welfare, this being defined
as the total benefits of trips undertaken less
the social cost of the system in terms of
resources allocated by society as a whole to
enable transit users to reach their chosen
destinations. Of course, quite often this max-
imization procedure is restricted to satisfy
some kind of budget constraint. Typically,
this process involves building a model that
represents overall generalized costs for a
fixed and known level of transit trip demand
specified by a trip matrix of travel between
different zones of the area served. The follow-
ing types of costs should be included:
1. Costs That Reflect Impacts on Users.
Among the direct impacts of a trip are
walking time (i.e., stop or station access
time), waiting time at each stage of
the trip (including added time when
waiting users are passed up by fully
loaded vehicles), the disutility of trans-
fers, and in-vehicle travel time. Vehicle
load factors should also be considered
for their effects on passenger comfort.
In the case of high-frequency services
that are not operating to a set schedule,
waiting time is assumed to be inversely
proportional to frequency. The fare is
not included as a social cost since it
is a mere transfer from one element of
the system (the user) to another (the
vehicle operator) rather than the con-
sumption of a resource.
To attach cost figures to these impacts,
the value of each of them—access time,
waiting time, and penalties for trans-
fers and overcrowding—must be deter-
mined. These values greatly vary from
user to user if they are estimated on the
basis of wage rates, but the use of a com-
mon value for all riders is recommended
so that the model is not biased toward
those with greater purchasing power
(who highly value time). It is up to the
transit authority to define the value of
time, but it should be noted that the
higher is this value, the denser will be
the network design and the more fre-
quent will be the services. It is therefore
an extremely important decision that is
typically grounded on how significant a
role the transit system is expected to
play in the city.
2. Infrastructure Costs. Different transit
technologies and services require
different levels of capital investment.
Putting a value on these costs necessar-
ily means defining the number of stops
or stations, the level of segregation of
the bus lanes, and the expenditures
involved in building and equipping
the corridor. The cost of installing any
vehicle control equipment or traffic
signal priority systems must also
be included. Each of these decisions
directly impacts on the operating speed
of services.
3. Operation Costs. These typically
include the cost of fleet acquisition and
a unit operating cost per run for each
route (for a given type of vehicle). By a
run, we understand the trip made by
 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
a single vehicle from the beginning to
the end of a route.
4. Costs Imposed by Externalities. This
includes impacts on travel times of
other transportation modes (cars,
bicycles, and walking), impacts on
accident rates, atmospheric and noise
pollution, and so on.
The formulation should model demand as
a set of trips where each user chooses the best
alternative available. In the absence of con-
gestion or vehicle load (capacity) limits, such
a set can be identified simply by minimizing
the social costs of the system.
If congestion in the system is expected
to be significant, however, with vehicle load
levels close to maximum capacity, the model
will have to accommodate this added com-
plexity. A design that omits this factor and
merely minimizes total costs would wrongly
assume that riders spontaneously choose the
alternative that is best for the system and
not just for them. Consider, for example, the
simple case illustrated in Fig. 2 of a transit
corridor with two lines in which their fre-
quencies need to be determined. The corridor
has three nodes and two origin–destination
pairs (A–B, A–C).
Let us assume that line 1 is very fast along
its entire length but has high operating costs
while line 2 is slow but with low costs. Both
lines charge the same fare. Clearly, the fre-
quency on line 1 cannot be zero since it is the
only route supplying trips from A to C and,
since it is offered, A–B passengers will also
want to take it. But if a capacity constraint
for line 1 were active, it could be cheaper
for the system to have A–B passengers to
travel on the slower line than to increase fre-
quencies on the faster one, in which case the
model would indicate that they wait for Line
2, something they would not do of their own
accord.
l2
l1 l1
A B C on the most heavily traveled segment of each
Figure 2. Corridor with two O–D pairs served by
two lines.
5
Thus, if capacity constraints are included,
the design must analyze how users decide
their route when there is more than one
alternative, each with its own combination
of times, transfers, and fares. Models of
user behavior need to take into account
that riders normally place a higher value
on waiting than walking and more value on
walking than in-vehicle traveling [6]. They
must also consider that these values greatly
vary between users of different income
levels.
Incorporating all of these different ele-
ments into a model is no easy task, and often
some are left out of preliminary design ver-
sions. Nevertheless, it is important that the
model accurately represents the transit sys-
tem so that it can generate detailed scenarios
for comparing alternatives and supporting
decision making.
Certain other indicators are useful in pro-
viding general orientation for the various
decisions confronting transit planners. For
example, it can be shown that the optimal ser-
vice frequency (f ∗ ) of a route with no capacity
or budget restraints is given by the following
formula [7,8]:

∗ kcw q
f = , (1)
co
where cw is the value of wait time, q is the
arrival rate of passengers to the system, co
is the operating cost per run, and k is a
headway constant defined so that k = 1/2 if
headways are perfectly regular and grows
as they become increasingly irregular. This
formula can be used to deduce the effect of
an abrupt decline in operating costs or a rise
in demand on the optimal route frequency.
Note, however, that in developing countries
the service frequencies given by Equation (1)
may be insufficient to meet demand. This is
because the value of operating costs tends to
be much higher than of wait time, implying
co > > cw . In such cases, the frequencies will
have to be adjusted to ensure that demand
route is satisfied.
The lower bound for the number of tran-
sit vehicles required during peak periods, n,
6 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
can also be estimated from the service fre-
quency if we recall that n = thc , where tc is
the cycle time, h is the headway, and h = 1f .
The cycle time on a two-way service is the
amount of time needed by a vehicle to do
both services sequentially, returning to its
original position.
This type of analysis can further be uti-
lized to determine the flows over a transit
corridor that would justify the adoption of
different transit solutions. Replacing a regu-
lar bus route with a BRT or a Metro line, for
example, is an important question that many
decision makers must face given the large
investment involved (the per-kilometer cost
of a metro line is at least US$60 million and
can reach as high as several hundred million)
and many actors attempt to influence these
decisions.
Often planners attempt to formulate the
problem of deciding which technology should
be considered for different demand levels.
These simplified results must be applied with
caution, however, as travel patterns of sim-
ilar size but different structure (in average
trip distance, for example) may or may not
justify a decision such as that mentioned in
the previous paragraph. In general, however,
decisions should not be made on the basis of
a subset of a network without considering its
global structure, particularly in the presence
of heavy congestion.
It should also be recalled that in real-
ity trip demand is far from being fixed and
known as we assumed above. Forecasting
demand is a complex process that depends on
many factors related to the characteristics of
the various transportation modes and of the
users themselves. Moreover, any changes to a
transit system that impact perceived service
levels may affect the number of trips taken
not only by current users but by potential
ones.
Finally, decisions at this level must deter-
mine the system’s fare structure and method
of payment. The fare structure influences
users’ route choices within the network.
The higher is the charge for transfers, for
example, the greater will be the proportion
of users opting for direct routes even if other
itineraries are faster.
TACTICAL DECISIONS
Once the routes to be served and the size of
the system’s fleet have been decided at the
strategic level, the planning process turns to
the tactical decisions. The issues addressed
at this level are as follows:
1. The definition of regular operating peri-
ods. Travel pattern data are used to
determine sequences of hours during
which trip volumes and their space
and time characteristics are relatively
homogeneous.
2. As already noted, service frequencies
for peak periods are normally defined
at the strategic level and serve as the
basis for identifying the size of the
vehicle fleet required by the system.
The frequencies for all other periods
are defined at the tactical level. For this
purpose, it is assumed that the demand
for trips is known and that the fre-
quencies can be obtained by Equation
(1). More sophisticated methods for
determining frequencies that incorpo-
rate variable and/or elastic demand
assumptions, alternative concepts of
waiting time, and explicit budget
restraints are reviewed in Ceder [3].
The ongoing adjustment of frequencies
at this decision level should keep them
in step with observed demand levels in
the system, and the expected demand
pattern changes because of seasonal
factors such as holiday periods or spe-
cial events that attract large crowds to
specific locations.
3. The definition of schedules based on
the frequencies for each period. This
involves determining the departure
times from each terminal for each
route. As a general rule, if demand
is relatively uniform over a given
period the departures are scheduled to
maintain equal headways. If demand
varies significantly, on the other hand,
departure times can be adjusted so that
passenger load levels are equalized
over the most heavily used segment
of a route. The problem is consid-
erably more complex if it is desired
 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
to synchronize transfers between
different routes at transfer stations.
Recent work on this issue is reviewed
in Desaulniers and Hickman [9].
Given expected between-stop travel
times and dwell times across the net-
work for each period, the visit times of
each run at each stop and arrival times
at route terminals can be predicted.
This result is central to vehicle schedul-
ing as it determines the time when a
vehicle becomes newly available for
service after finishing a run.
For low-frequency routes (less than
six vehicles per hour), schedules are
normally published in various media so
that users can plan their stop arrival
times to minimize waiting. With high-
frequency routes, schedules are rarely
published, as the inevitable variations
in actual service relative to the sched-
uled service intervals are relatively
large, rendering detailed timetables of
little practical use to riders. They may
still be used by drivers as a general
guide for maintaining regular intervals
between successive runs.
4. Definition of special services for high-
demand periods or routes with high
spatial concentration. Implementation
of such services, for example, short
turning, deadheading, and express
services may be justified by certain
demand structures. A number of these
strategies are discussed in Furth and
Day [10].
One of the advantages of these services
is that they constitute an alternative
to putting on additional vehicles and
thus reduce the required fleet size for
serving a given demand, which in turn
implies lower system costs. In opera-
tional terms, these strategies increase
frequencies along high-load route seg-
ments to reduce wait times. Express
services in particular are used to reduce
the in-vehicle travel times of some trips.
5. Establishment of fares for each period.
Fare structures can be defined to pro-
mote or discourage ridership at dif-
ferent times of the day. For example,
since the number of required vehicles is
7
necessarily determined by the highest
demand period, a means of reducing
fleet size is to raise fares for peak
hours, which tends to flatten the peak
as some users shift their travel plans to
lower fare off-peak periods. Fare vari-
ations can also be applied to different
directions of the same route. Charg-
ing a higher rate on the high-demand
direction will encourage greater use of
services at points where there is more
available capacity. Also, fares should
depend on the distance traveled to rep-
resent in some sense the cost imposed
on the system. If the exact distance
cannot be measured, charging accord-
ing to a zonal structure may provide
the second-best alternative.
OPERATIONAL DECISIONS
Given the route schedules and available
resources in terms of vehicles, drivers,
garages, and possible driver relief points,
the scheduling of vehicles and drivers
should minimize operating costs subject
to constraints imposed by garage capacity,
employment standards and agreements,
and other relevant factors peculiar to the
area served by the system. Each run in the
schedule requires a vehicle and a driver in
the right place at the right time. Thus, the
(often sequential) decisions to be made at
this level are
1. Vehicle Scheduling. The arrival and
departure times of each run at each ter-
minal are drawn from the route sched-
ules discussed in the previous section.
These are used to define the number
of vehicles of each type to be assigned
to each terminal and the set of runs
(called a block) to be assigned to each
vehicle such that all runs can be carried
out as scheduled. In formal terms, the
fleet of vehicles Fv,k of type v assigned
to terminal k must satisfy the following
relationship [11]:
 
Fv,k ≥ max Dv,k (t) − Av,k (t) , (2)
t
8 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
where Dv,k (t) is the cumulative number
of departures of type v vehicles from
terminal k at instant t, and Av,k (t)
is the cumulative number of arrivals
of type v vehicles at terminal k at
instant t. The sum of these assign-
ments over all terminals and types of
vehicles gives the minimum required
fleet size for satisfying the entire
system schedule. This value can be
reduced through modifications to the
route schedules such as marginally
reducing frequencies, advancing or
delaying arrivals, changing assigned
vehicle types for a given run, and
repositioning vehicles from terminals
where more vehicles arrive than the
number departing for terminals with a
shortage of arrivals. This repositioning
usually involves deadhead runs, but
where demand exists it may also be
traveled with passengers (creating new
express services, for example).
The vehicle scheduling process aims
at defining vehicle blocks consisting
of feasible sequences of runs and
repositionings (deadhead vehicle trips)
for each vehicle between route ter-
minals or terminals and the vehicle
garage. The objective is to minimize a
combination of required fleet size and
non-revenue time subject to satisfying
all scheduled runs. This problem of
assigning vehicles to runs starting from
a single depot is called the single depot
vehicle scheduling problem (SDVSP).
The SDVSP can be solved in polyno-
mial time. For a detailed overview
of the literature on the SDVSP, see
Desrosiers [12].
2. Driver Shift Scheduling. Once a block
has been assigned to each vehicle, they
are initially divided into tasks that
must be worked by a single driver. So
tasks start and end at relief points
of the network, where vehicles can
exchange drivers. The problem of
assigning drivers to tasks is called the
crew scheduling problem (CSP). A CSP
is solved for each day of the planning
horizon. In the CSP, a minimum cost
set of duties (sequence of tasks by a
single driver) must be determined so
that all tasks are assigned to a duty
and each duty can be performed by a
driver. The possibility of drivers doing
overtime at a higher salary is usually
considered in a CSP. Driver constraints
like maximum working time without a
break, minimum break duration, and
maximum working time are typically
added. Although CSP looks similar to
the SDVSP in structure, it is much
more complicated. The CSP has been
shown to be NP-hard. Wren and
Rousseau [13] present an overview of
different approaches for this problem.
Once the driver duties over the plan-
ning horizon have been determined,
duties are assigned to specific drivers.
At this stage, called the rostering
process, other constraints like rest
periods, holidays, training, and so on,
are considered. A survey on different
approaches for this problem can be
found in Odoni et al. [14].
This sequential approach for transit
systems is inherited from the airline
industry, where vehicles are optimized
before drivers (crews in this case)
since vehicle-related costs have a
bigger impact on the total budget. In
the case of transit systems based on
buses, driver-related costs may be the
most significant. Therefore, transit
systems may benefit from optimizing
drivers first and should do it taking
full advantage of driver’s flexibility.
This sequential approach to design a
transportation system has other impor-
tant limitations. Performance improve-
ments could be obtained if the problem
was solved simultaneously instead, but
the complexity of the problem makes it
a challenge.
Another drawback of the sequential
approach is that it assumes a determin-
istic system. However, uncertainties
are present at all operation levels (e.g.,
driver absenteeism, passenger demand,
roundtrip durations, and vehicle fail-
ure) and should be considered in these
decisions (e.g., hiring extra drivers,
called extraboard, may allow operation
 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
in case of absenteeism). Also, an
effective control reaction to these and
other uncertainties should be designed,
as is explained in the next section.
REAL-TIME CONTROL
In the absence of any control system, the
vagaries of traffic and of passenger demand
at the various stops along a route tend to
result in the formation of convoys of road
transit vehicles. This phenomenon, known as
bus bunching [15], has negative effects on
the functioning of the transit system. One of
these is the impact on average system wait
times and their variability. Formally, aver-
age wait time E[W] assuming users arrive
randomly at a stop is given by
E[H] Var[H]
E[W] = + , (3)
2 2E[H]
where E[H] and Var[H] are, respectively,
the mean and variance of vehicle headways.
Bunching is thus highly undesirable, because
it generates a noticeable rise in the variance
of the intervals separating successive vehi-
cle runs, which translates into average wait
times that are longer and more variable.
It also leads to underutilization of vehicle
capacity since most passengers will be con-
centrated on the first vehicle in the bunch.
This means that the average user will not
only wait longer but also be riding on a fuller
vehicle. Moreover, in high-demand scenarios
vehicle load capacity is often exceeded and
waiting passengers are unable to board the
first arriving vehicle. These bunching phe-
nomena impact strongly on perceived service
levels, especially since, as mentioned, wait-
ing time has the highest subjective value of
all travel time components.
To avoid bunching, various control strate-
gies may be adopted for regularizing head-
ways. These include (i) holding vehicles at
stops to prevent them catching up to the
vehicle ahead; (ii) skipping stops at which no
passenger wants to alight in order to make
up time; and (iii) installing a traffic signal
priority (TSP) system that can speed up or
hold back vehicles.
9
Other eventualities, such as vehicle
breakdowns, closed streets, and so on, may
arise. The appropriate actions to be taken in
these and other cases should be set out in
contingency plans defining how vehicles and
personnel are to be reassigned in each type
of situation.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Although the division of decision making into
four levels is useful in ordering and ranking
the various transit scheduling problems, it
must be kept in mind that the design deci-
sions at the strategic level are dependent on
the solutions found for the lower level deci-
sion problems because of their impact on cost
indicators. To solve the strategic design ques-
tions, estimates are required of such factors
as how many drivers are needed per vehi-
cle, how frequent service on a given route
should be, and how long will waiting times
be at that frequency, and so on. One of the
ongoing challenges for researchers in this
area is to develop methodologies that enable
these problems at different levels to be solved
simultaneously.
For each of the decision levels, we have
described a sequence of problems that
must be addressed. Each of these problems
is complex in and of itself and generally
involves not just technical challenges but
social, psychological, economic, political, and
urban design aspects as well. The presence
of these other issues indicates that although
operations research, with its techniques
based on various types of mathematical
modeling (optimization, control, econometric,
etc.), is a highly valuable tool, it must be
complemented by other decision-making
mechanisms.
For an advanced coverage on the math-
ematical models and solution methodologies
of the different problems covered in this arti-
cle, the reader is referred to Desaulniers and
Hickman [9] and Ceder [3].
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Across
Latitudes and Cultures—Bus Rapid Transit
Centre of Excellence funded by the Volvo
10 OPTIMIZATION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Research and Educational Foundations
(VREF). We also acknowledge funding
received through the CONICYT project
‘‘Anillos Tecnológicos ACT-32.’’
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