Demi-flexible operating policies to promote the performance of public transit in low-demand areas

Feng Qiu, Jinxing Shen, Xuechi Zhang and Chengchuan An

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2015, vol. 80, issue C, 215-230

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.

Keywords: Public transit; Demi-flexible operating policy; Low demand; Uncertain demand; Transportation design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2015.08.003

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