Analysis of an idealized system of demand adaptive paired-line hybrid transit

•We propose to investigate a new hybrid transit system that integrates a demand-adaptive services into a fixed-route system.•The optimal design problem of the hybrid system is formulated as a mixed integer program.•The cost components of the system are estimated analytically using a continuous approximation approach.•Numerical experiments are conducted to compare the proposed system with two related transit systems considered as its special cases.•A discrete-event simulation model is developed and applied to confirm the correctness of the analytical results.

This paper proposes and analyzes a new transit system that integrates the traditional fixed-route service with a demand-adaptive service. The demand-adaptive service connects passengers from their origin/destination to the fixed-route service in order to improve accessability. The proposed hybrid design is unique in that it operates the demand-adaptive service with a stable headway to cover all stops along a paired fixed-route line. Pairing demand-adaptive vehicles with a fixed-route line simplifies the complexity of on-demand routing, because the vehicles can follow a more predictable path and can be dispatched on intervals coordinated with the fixed-route line. The design of the two services are closely coupled to minimize the total system cost, which incudes both the transit agency’s operating cost and the user cost. The optimal design model is formulated as a mixed integer program and solved using a commercially available metaheuristic. Numerical experiments are conducted to compare the demand adaptive paired-line hybrid transit (DAPL-HT) system with two related transit systems that may be considered its special cases: a fixed-route system and a flexible-route system. We show that the DAPL-HT system outperforms the other two systems under a wide range of demand levels and in various scenarios of input parameters. A discrete-event simulation model is also developed and applied to confirm the correctness of the analytical results.