Optimization of headways with stop‐skipping control: a case study of bus rapid transit system

Abstract

Summary Bus rapid transit system is designed to provide high‐quality and cost‐efficient passenger transportation services. In order to achieve this design objective, effective scheduling strategies are required. This research aims at improving the operation efficiency and service quality of a BRT system through integrated optimization of its service headways and stop‐skipping strategy. Based on cost analysis for both passengers and operation agencies, an optimization model is established. A genetic algorithms based algorithm and an application‐oriented solution method are developed. Beijing BRT Line 2 has been chosen as a case study, and the effectiveness of the optimal headways with stop‐skipping services under different demand levels has been analyzed. The results has shown that, at a certain demand level, the proposed operating strategy can be most advantageous for passengers with an accepted increase of operating costs, under which the optimum headway is between 3.5 and 5.5 min for stop‐skipping services during the morning peak hour depending on the demand with the provision of stop‐skipping services. The effectiveness of the optimal headways with stop‐skipping services is compared with those of existing headways and optimal headways without stop‐skipping services. The results show that operating strategies under the optimal headways with stop‐skipping services outperforms the other two operating strategies with respect to total costs and in‐vehicle time for passengers. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Does Operation Scheduling Make a Difference: Tapping the Potential of Optimized Design for Skipping-Stop Strategy in Reducing Bus Emissions

“…For example, Wei et al [7] proposed a scheduling model to adjust the bus frequency by minimizing passengers' waiting time and maximizing the corporate profit. Leiva et al [8], Chen et al [9], and Zhang et al [10] presented an optimization approach in designing skip-stop services that minimized the wait time, in-vehicle travel time, and operator cost given an origin-destination trip matrix. Qu et al [11] proposed a mathematical model to optimize service, consisting of all-stop and stop-skipping services, by minimizing the total cost of wait, transfer, and in-vehicle travel.…”

“…Walking time is not included here, because it is mainly a function of the stop location and cannot be impacted by the operational scheduling [9]. In addition, passengers transferring from a skip-stop service to an all-stop service need to wait for the bus to transfer at the same AB stop without extra transfer walking time.…”

“…The stop-skipping strategy should be provided for the bus operation. As a key determinant for which stops should be served by skip-stop buses, the ratio between the passenger demand and the average passenger demand at each stop is analyzed, and 1.2 is chosen as the threshold according to the practice of the bus operator in Beijing [9]. The ratio of stops 1, 2, 6, 12, and 15 is higher than a threshold of 1.2.…”

“…The results are presented in Table 2. With reference to the relevant statistics and the experiences of the public transit operation agency in Beijing [9,[26][27][28], the other input data of the model are collected as shown in Table 3. …”

Real-Time Hybrid In-Station Bus Dispatching Strategy Based on Mixed Integer Programming

“…The stop-skipping strategies were firstly studied and used in urban rail transit [20,21] because the travel time of trains can be estimated easily and exactly. Then this kind of dispatching strategy was brought in to improve the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) [22,23]. Stop-skipping could speed up the buses and is coincident with the concept of BRT.…”