A routing and scheduling framework incorporating real‐time adjustments for inter‐city bus carriers under stochastic travel times and demands

Abstract

Stochastic bus travel times and varying passenger demand often occur in actual inter‐city bus operations and such variation can reduce the performance of preplanned bus routes/schedules. In past research, stochastic disturbances have often been handled in the planning and the real‐time stages separately, meaning that the interrelationship between these two stages, as affected by such disturbances, has been neglected. In this research, we develop a framework embedded in a solution process designed to help inter‐city bus carriers plan bus routes/schedules that are sensitive to stochastic bus travel times and varying passenger demand. The test results, related to a major Taiwan inter‐city bus operation, show that the proposed framework performs better than the current carrier timetables and the traditional deterministic model.