Developing Integrated Schedules for Urban Rail and Feeder Bus Operation

Abstract

This paper discusses a model for developing optimal integrated schedules for urban rail and feeder bus operation. It consists of two parts: train scheduling submodel and schedule coordination submodel, which are formulated as combinatorial type optimization problems. The objective function for train scheduling submodel is fixed as minimization of sum of operating cost of trains (operator cost) and total waiting time cost of passengers boarding the train (user costs) subject to load factor and waiting time constraint, whereas the objective function for schedule coordination submodel is fixed as minimization of sum of total operating cost of feeder buses (operator cost), total transfer time cost for passengers transferring from train to feeder buses, and total waiting time cost of passengers boarding enroute (user costs) subject to load factor and transfer time constraint. The coordination is done for two cases: Case 1 for mixed fleet buses, considering all types of buses; Case 2 for single-decker fleet buses, considering only standard single-decker buses, and the results are compared to adopt the best strategy. Thane City, which is a part of Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India, is taken as the case study area. The coordinated feeder bus schedules were found to be optimum for the mixed fleet bus case.