Optimal fleet size, frequencies and vehicle capacities considering peak and off-peak periods in public transport

Sergio Jara-Diaz (), Andrés Fielbaum and Antonio Gschwender

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2017, vol. 106, issue C, 65-74

Abstract: The fleet for surface transit in urban areas - number of buses and vehicle size - is usually determined by the characteristics of demand during the peak period, adjusting frequencies for other periods where those characteristics are quite different. Here the problem is formulated analytically considering a representative single line where hourly passengers flow and average trip lengths differ between peak and off-peak periods. Analytical and numerical results show that minimizing social costs (operators and users) for the whole day yields a larger fleet of smaller buses than if only the peak period is considered. Contrary to previous results on this issue, optimal frequencies across periods differ by a large amount, as optimal peak and off-peak frequencies are larger and smaller respectively than what would be obtained modeling each period by itself. The optimal bus size lies in-between the capacities obtained when each period is independently optimized. Several other interesting counterintuitive results are shown.

Keywords: Public transport; Two periods; Optimal frequencies; Optimal bus size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2017.09.005

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