Bus route design in small demand areas

Abstract

The paper deals with the situation when a low populated area is in need of public transport service. It is necessary to design a bus route, passing through the area and meeting the accessibility and efficiency requirements. The article presents a mathematical formulation of the problem in terms of the network theory together with two exact and several heuristic methods for finding a solution. The paper describes that the problem is NP-hard, and therefore computing experience is outlined.

Keywords

• public transport
• low demand area
• route design
• accessibility
• optimization
• heuristics