Long Routes Design in Bus Network of Isfahan City

The population growth of Isfahan metropolis in the recent years and the historical and cultural monuments in the central part of the city which cause some limitations for building new streets, have caused transportation and traffic problems in the city. One of the important procedures to solve the transportation and traffic problem of the Isfahan city is improving the public transit system. Although the bus network of Isfahan with more than 2000 kilometers of line coverage serve the citizens, but the relative proportion of this transportation mode in transferring the passengers in the city is very low. The improving of the bus network of Isfahan could attract the passengers from other transportation modes. One way of improving the bus network is decreasing the number of passenger transfers. Long route design in the bus network could decrease the number of transfers and improve the operation of bus network from the passenger's viewpoint and thus, attract them to the network. In the present article, first, the maps of people's willing for long-distance movement in Isfahan city were made in order to determine the candidate corridors and main routes for designing the long routes in the bus network of Isfahan city. Then, three long routes were suggested by merging the existing routes using the maps of people's willing for long-distance movement in Isfahan city, regarding some specific hypotheses and consulting with the city's transportation experts. To evaluate the suggested routes, the traffic assignment software was used to compare existing and suggested situation. The results obtained from evaluating these routes showed an improvement in some criteria which suggested that designing long routes in the bus network of Isfahan city was effective.