No abstract

Internet-based transit services have the potential to enable fully connected, safe, reliable, efficient, and flexible service in the public transit system. The flexible transit system (FTS) allows passengers to make individual travel requests and receive customized door-to-door service by specifying their origins and destinations (OD), departure time range, and willingness to pay (WTP). Unlike the uniform and stable WTP in our previous paper , we consider an exponential decay function for the real pickup locations of passengers, and we proposed a joint design of two-level bus stops in temporal and spatial variations of travel demands. To ensure practical applications of this real-time FTS model, we combine the traversing method and the improved tabu search algorithm. A numerical example from Guangzhou is conducted to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model and its effectiveness in reducing system cost.

This paper proposes an alternative flexible transit model with two levels of bus stops, A level and B level. A-level bus stops are fixed, while B-level bus stops are flexible and provide service only when passengers indicate a strong willingness to pay (WTP). This fare structure encourages passengers to choose bus stops with their mobile phones or computers. An optimization model of 0-1 integer-programming is formulated based on whether certain B-level stops can be serviced. With a numerical example, we compare the performance of the proposed traversing method and a tabu search algorithm, both of which are adapted to solve the model. Finally, a real case is provided to evaluate the proposed transit system against comparable systems (e.g., a fixed-route transit system and a taxi service), and the result shows that the flexible transit routing model will help both passengers and bus companies, thus creating a win-win situation.

No abstract

No abstract