Optimizing On-Demand Bus Services for Remote Areas

Xudong Li, Zhongzhen Yang and Feng Lian ()
Additional contact information
Xudong Li: Faculty of Maritime and Transportation, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315000, China
Zhongzhen Yang: Faculty of Maritime and Transportation, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315000, China
Feng Lian: Faculty of Maritime and Transportation, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315000, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-20

Abstract: This study proposes on-demand bus services for remote areas with low transit demand, incorporating travelers’ willingness to pay and values of time. To jointly optimize the on-demand service of overlapping bus routes, we construct a bi-level model. The upper-level model (UM) optimizes bus departure frequency in different time windows and ticket prices of on-demand services to minimize the total generalized cost, subject to travelers’ willingness to pay for on-demand services. The lower-level model (LM) calculates the probability of travelers choosing on-demand stops. A numerical analysis based on Meishan Island data in Ningbo indicates that with on-demand bus services, the total generalized cost incurred by buses and travelers can be reduced by 30.36% and 15.35% during rush and off-rush hours, respectively. Additionally, the waiting time at an on-demand bus stop is only 4.3 min during rush hours and 6.8 min during off-rush hours.

Keywords: on-demand bus; willingness to pay; overlapping bus routes; bi-level model; remote areas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7264/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7264/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:9:p:7264-:d:1134116

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().