Feeder Bus Timetable Design and Vehicle Size Setting in Peak Hour Demand Conditions

This study proposes a solution to the feeder bus timetabling problem, in which the terminal departure times and vehicle sizes are simultaneously determined based on the given transfer passengers and their arrival times at a bus terminal. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model with the objective of minimizing the transfer waiting time of served passengers, the transfer failure cost of non-served passengers, and the operating costs of bus companies. In addition to train passengers who plan to transfer to buses, local passengers who intend to board buses are considered and treated as passengers from virtual trains in the proposed model. Passenger attitudes and behaviors toward the waiting queue caused by bus capacity constraints in peak hour demand conditions are explicitly embedded in the MINLP model. A hybrid artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is developed to solve the MINLP model. Various experiments are set up to account for the performance of the proposed model and solution algorithm.