Development of an expert system to assist the interactive graphic transit system design process: Janarthanan, Natarajan, Ph.D. University of Washington, 1987. 252pp. Chairperson: Jerry B. Schneider

Abstract

Urban public transit plays a vital role in the functioning of most urban areas. Transit network design is one of the important components of urban transit planning. Because of the complexity of planning urban transit, the components can be best handled by using interactive graphic methods, coupled with ways to evaluate alternative transit network designs from multiple conflicting criteria. The research presented in this paper focuses on an investigation of the applicability of a knowledge-based expert systems (KBES) approach to increasing the productivity of the transit network design process. For this research, an interactive KBES, TNOP_ADVISOR, was developed to assist in the development of high-performance transit network designs. TNOP_ADVISOR provides advice about how to modify designs to obtain improved performance. A network simulation software package, Transit Network Optimization System (TNOP), provides the capability for modifying and predicting the performance of these designs. Three tests are conducted using the interactive KBES and multicriteria evaluation capability as support tools for the conduct of a TNOP-based design process. The results show that the advice provided helped produce high-performance designs in all cases.