The analysis and application of competition and cooperation between the bus lines

Abstract

It is very valuable for planning bus routes and improving transport efficiency to quantify the cooperation and competition between lines. Cooperation modes and competition modes between two lines are defined respectively based on the location of bus stops. Cooperative coefficient and competitive coefficient are proposed to calculate different modes quantitatively in term of the number of overlapped stops and overlapped service area. These coefficients can be used to convert multi-relation transit network into weighted single network to analyze the close degree between lines. Taking Qiqihar City transit network as an example, cooperative coefficient and competitive coefficient between two lines are calculated. The bus network is converted into weighted single network, and the single network is then clustered with social network analysis method. The cluster result indicates that the network can be divided into three groups whose bus lines have different cooperation and competition strength, so distinguish management modes for different group are quite necessary.