Joint Optimization of a Rail Transit Line and Its Feeder Bus System

Steven Chien, Paul Schonfeld

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

136 Scopus citations

Abstract

A model is developed for jointly optimizing the characteristics of a rail transit route and its associated feeder bus routes in an urban corridor. The corridor demand characteristics are specified with irregular discrete distributions which can realistically represent geographic variations. The total cost (supplier plus user cost) of the integrated bus and rail network is minimized with an efficient iterative method that successively substitutes variable values obtained through classical analytic optimization. The optimized variables include rail line length, rail station spacings, bus headways, bus stop spacings, and bus route spacing. Computer programs are designed for optimization and sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity of the transit service characteristics to various travel time and cost parameters is discussed. Numerical examples are presented for integrated transit systems in which the rail and bus schedules may be coordinated.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)253-284
Number of pages32
JournalJournal of Advanced Transportation
Volume32
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1998

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Automotive Engineering
  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Strategy and Management

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