Title: Simulation model to determine frequency of a single bus route with single and multiple headways

Authors: R. Baskaran; K. Krishnaiah

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Anna University Chennai, Chennai – 600 025, India. ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Anna University Chennai, Chennai – 600 025, India

Abstract: Determination of frequency is one of the important elements of bus transit system design. In the past, the researchers have used the average passenger demand and average travel time (deterministic data) as input in their models to find the frequency of buses in a selected route. In practice, the arrival of passengers at the stages and travelling time between stages is stochastic in nature. So, the frequency determination under deterministic conditions may not yield good results. In this paper, the stochastic nature of passenger arrival at the stages and travelling time between stages is considered. A simulation model is built using ARENA version 12, a discrete simulation software package to arrive at the solution. The best frequency is determined for the selected route so as to minimise the total cost comprising the waiting time cost of the passengers and operating cost of the buses with single and multiple headways. The model has been applied to one of the bus routes in Chennai City (a metropolitan city in India).

Keywords: modelling; single bus routes; single headways; multiple headways; frequency; waiting costs; operating costs; simulation; bus transit systems; system design; passenger arrivals; travelling time; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPSCM.2012.044973

International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling, 2012 Vol.4 No.1, pp.40 - 59

Published online: 11 Aug 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article