Extension of bus service areas using genetic algorithm

Abstract

Since the traffic congestion due to continuous inflow of population to the cities has been raised, the public transportation system has been developed for solving such issue. But the usage rate of passenger car which is personal transportation is still high, indicating an inadequate transition in the means of transportation. Although there may be various reasons for this, the importance of accessibility to the means of public transportation has been pointed out frequently. The purpose of this study was to secure a balanced bus service by solving inequality in the usage of public transportation occurred according to the spatial location, with focus on the bus service. The bus service shadow areas were extracted by carrying out a bus service shadow areas extraction technique applied with the spatial analysis using public data provided based on Government 3.0. The bus service shadow areas extraction technique has a total of three stages, extracting the bus service area, extracting the road at which bus can stop and extracting the area where bus service is needed. In order to design a proper route for the extracted shadow area, a bus route design technique applied with the genetic algorithm was presented. Since the travel demand of potential passengers and the existing routes are considered for this technique, it is possible to meet the travel demand and design a bus route with minimal overlapping with the existing routes. It is expected that the result of this study could increase the rate of bus usage by improving the service level of bus. It is also expected that the result could help relieving traffic congestion by minimizing overlapping with the existing routes and reduce time and economic loss through flexible route design that reflects constantly changing traffic environments and travel characteristics.