Demi-flexible operating policies to promote the performance of public transit in low-demand areas. (October 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Qiu, Feng; Shen, Jinxing; Zhang, Xuechi; An, Chengchuan
• Is Part Of: Transportation research. Volume 80(2015)
• Page Start: 215
• Page End: 230
• Publication Date: 2015-10
• Subjects: Public transit -- Demi-flexible operating policy -- Low demand -- Uncertain demand -- Transportation design; Transportation -- Research -- Periodicals; 388.011
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2015.08.003
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0965-8564

Abstract

Highlights: We propose a novel concept named demi-flexible transit operating policies. Analytic models are developed to reproduce transit operation. The system performance is evaluated at expected and unexpected demand levels. Experiments demonstrate the unique advantages of demi-flexible operating policies. Abstract: The efforts of providing attractive transport service to residents in sparse communities have previously focused on operating flexible transit services. This paper identifies a new category of transit policies, called demi-flexible operating policies, to fill the gap between flexible transit services and conventional fixed-route systems. The passenger cost function is defined as the performance measure of transit systems and the analytic work is performed based on a real-world flag-stop transit service, in which we compare its system performance with another two comparable systems, the fixed-route and flex-route services, at expected and unexpected demand levels in order to be closer to reality. In addition, the dynamic-station policy is introduced to assist the flex-route service to better deal with unexpectedly high demand. Experiments demonstrate the unique advantages of demi-flexible operating policies in providing affordable, efficient, and reliable transport service in low-demand operating environments and this work is helpful to optimize the unifying framework for designing public transit in suburban and rural areas.