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Dynamic bus substitution strategy for bunching intervention

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  • Petit, Antoine
  • Ouyang, Yanfeng
  • Lei, Chao

Abstract

Bus headways are typically susceptible to external disturbances (e.g., due to traffic congestion, clustered passenger arrivals, and special passenger needs), which create gaps in the system that grow eventually into bunching. Although many control strategies, such as static and dynamic holding strategies, have been implemented to mitigate the effects of unreliable bus schedules, most of them would impose longer dwell times on the passengers. In this paper, we investigate the potential of an alternative bus substitution strategy that is currently implemented by some transit agencies in an ad-hoc manner. In this strategy, the agency deploys a fleet of standby buses to take over service from any early or late buses so as to contain deviations from schedule, and the intention is to impose minimum penalties on the onboard passengers. We develop a discrete-time infinite-horizon approximate dynamic programming approach to find the optimal policy to minimize the overall agency and passenger costs. It is shown through numerical examples that schedule deviations can be controlled by regularly inserting standby buses as substitutions. In some implementation scenarios, the proposed strategy holds the potential to achieve comparable performance with some of the most advanced strategies, and to outperform the conventional slack-based schedule control scheme. In light of the emerging opportunities associated with autonomous driving, the performance of the proposed strategy can become even stronger due to the reduction in costs for keeping the fleet of standby buses.

Suggested Citation

  • Petit, Antoine & Ouyang, Yanfeng & Lei, Chao, 2018. "Dynamic bus substitution strategy for bunching intervention," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-16.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:transb:v:115:y:2018:i:c:p:1-16
    DOI: 10.1016/j.trb.2018.06.001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Lacombe, Rémi & Murgovski, Nikolce & Gros, Sébastien & Kulcsár, Balázs, 2024. "Integrated charging scheduling and operational control for an electric bus network," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    4. Zhou, Chang & Tian, Qiong & Wang, David Z.W., 2022. "A novel control strategy in mitigating bus bunching: Utilizing real-time information," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-13.
    5. Khan, Zaid Saeed & Menéndez, Mónica, 2023. "Bus splitting and bus holding: A new strategy using autonomous modular buses for preventing bus bunching," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    6. Fatemeh Enayatollahi & Ahmed Osman Idris & M. A. Amiri Atashgah, 2019. "Modelling bus bunching under variable transit demand using cellular automata," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 269-298, August.
    7. Petit, Antoine & Lei, Chao & Ouyang, Yanfeng, 2019. "Multiline Bus Bunching Control via Vehicle Substitution," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 68-86.
    8. Paula Nguyen & Ehab Diab & Amer Shalaby, 2019. "Understanding the factors that influence the probability and time to streetcar bunching incidents," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 299-320, August.

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