Synchronized timetables for bus rapid transit networks in small and large cities

The quality of public transportation service has major effects on people’s quality of life. During frequency and timetable setting, synchronization is a very important and complicated issue which can directly influence the utility and attractiveness of the system. In this paper, a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model is proposed that aims at setting timetables on a bus transit network with the maximum synchronization and the minimum number of fleet size. The proposed model is shown to be applicable for both small and large-scale transit networks by employing it for setting timetables on two samples of both sizes. As an illustrative example, a simple version of the model is coded and run in GAMS Software and a completely reasonable timetable is obtained. As the second example, the proposed model is used to set timetables on Tehran BRT networks through the genetic algorithm; then the NSGA-II is used to obtain the Pareto optimal solutions of the problem for five different scenarios. The Pareto optimal solutions are used to draw the Pareto optimal fronts which act as an essential decision making tool. The overall results show that the proposed model is efficient enough to be employed setting timetables on transit networks with different sizes.