Optimization of transit route network, vehicle headways and timetables for large-scale transit networks

This paper presents a metaheuristic method for optimizing transit networks, including route network design, vehicle headway, and timetable assignment. Given information on transit demand, the street network of the transit service area, and total fleet size, the goal is to identify a transit network that minimizes a passenger cost function. Transit network optimization is a complex combinatorial problem due to huge search spaces of route network, vehicle headways, and timetables. The methodology described in this paper includes a representation of transit network variable search spaces (route network, headway, and timetable); a user cost function based on passenger random arrival times, route network, vehicle headways, and timetables; and a metaheuristic search scheme that combines simulated annealing, tabu, and greedy search methods. This methodology has been tested with problems reported in the existing literature, and applied to a large-scale realistic network optimization problem. The results show that the methodology is capable of producing improved solutions to large-scale transit network design problems in reasonable amounts of time and computing resources.