Real-time customized bus routes design with optimal passenger and vehicle matching based on column generation algorithm

Abstract

With the popularity and development of mobile Internet, new transportation network services such as customized buses are expected to become a new way of popular transportation in crowded metropolises. In this paper, we propose a real-time customized bus routes design model. We divide the proposed model into two-stage problem to solve. The first stage problem is the vehicle route problem with time window (VRPTW), and the second stage problem is bilateral matching problem. For the first stage, the column generation algorithm is used to solve the problem. For the second stage, we solve it by the improved H-R bilateral matching algorithm. Finally, data on customized bus in Tianjin city of China are used to verify the accuracy of the real-time customized bus routes design model. The optimized results show that the average attendance rate has reached 70.8%, and the service rate of passenger has reached 88.5%. The results have proved that the real-time customized bus routes design model has a practical applicability in operation.