Transit Assignment Model Incorporating Bus Dwell Time

Abstract

The transit assignment problem with consideration of bus dwell time was analyzed in this study. The links in a transit network can be classified into four types: onboard, alighting, boarding, and dummy links. These types reflect bus dwelling behavior at bus stations. Accordingly, the travel time functions on these links can be analyzed. This paper proposes a new equation for the bus dwell time at each bus station; the dwell time is the maximum value between the passengers’ boarding time and alighting time. An approach based on dynamic programming is used to describe the equilibrium passenger flow in the transit network. A gap function is proposed for formulating the equilibrium passenger flow, which can be solved with the revised optimal strategy algorithm and the method of successive averages. Two numerical examples in which the bus dwell time function is calibrated with real survey data are adopted. These examples validate the proposed methodology.