Large-Scale Demand Driven Design of a Customized Bus Network: A Methodological Framework and Beijing Case Study

Abstract

In recent years, an innovative public transportation (PT) mode known as the customized bus (CB) has been proposed and implemented in many cities in China to efficiently and effectively shift private car users to PT to alleviate traffic congestion and traffic-related environmental pollution. The route network design activity plays an important role in the CB operation planning process because it serves as the basis for other operation planning activities, for example, timetable development, vehicle scheduling, and crew scheduling. In this paper, according to the demand characteristics and operational purpose, a methodological framework that includes the elements of large-scale travel demand data processing and analysis, hierarchical clustering-based route origin-destination (OD) region division, route OD region pairing, and a route selection model is proposed for CB network design. Considering the operating cost and social benefits, a route selection model is proposed and a branch-and-bound-based solution method is developed. In addition, a computer-aided program is developed to analyze a real-world Beijing CB route network design problem. The results of the case study demonstrate that the current CB network of Beijing can be significantly improved, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.