ANALYTICAL MODELING AND OPTIMIZATION OF URBAN PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS

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ANALYTICAL MODELING OF URBAN PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS Urban public transit plays an essential role in developing a sustainable transport system that provides increased mobility with an economy of scale. The long-term goal of the research program is to gain results & insights to improve the design, planning & operation of public transit.  Over 5 years, the research program will formulate a novel transit service evaluation metric and incorporate new advancement in technology (e.g. transit automation) while taking into consideration the needed adaptation in transit service and route network (e.g. demand responsive transit). These short-term objectives to be achieved are as follows with the first three objectives & previous research enabling the final two: 1: Develop a Route Level of Service (LofS) measure: Currently used LofS measures are arbitrary. Our objective is to find the LofS of an optimized route for each aspect & a unified LofS to compare routes and identify improvements. . 2. Analyze a fully Autonomous Bus Route: Autonomous systems are expected to evolve rapidly. Our objective is to study a fully autonomous bus that will serve a long route on regular roads, for travel from many origins to many destinations.   3. Analyze Electric Bus (EB) Reliability: Buses need time-points where they are held if running early. Additionally, EB's require identified stops at which batteries must be recharged causing unreliability. Our objective is to determine the time points chosen to be battery charging points to reduce unreliability. 4. Model a Demand Responsive Transit (DRT) Local Network: DRT is key to providing sustainable service in low demand situations. Our objective is to investigate the conditions under which communities become suitable for DRT. 5. Model Major Transit Networks: Transit agencies revise networks every few years. Our objectives are to optimize irregular transit networks, & propose how & when to transition from an existing network to a significantly different network.  The focus of the Short Term Objectives: Objective functions will be developed to include passenger time costs plus operating, environmental & capital costs. An analytical approach is taken to develop normative models & undertake optimization & reliability analysis. We will first focus on three individual route aspects that are currently neglected & using those results, & other available research, study a local transit network and one major transit network. The methodology can be applied to any route/network & provide significant insight. A unique aspect is to investigate the use of an "optimal" amount of data based on normative modeling as opposed to "big" data. The novelty here is the use of normative, continuum, analytical models and mostly calculus-based optimization to obtain deeply penetrative understanding of the issues. The significance is the contribution to the mobility of Canadians given the increasingly important role of transit in a sustainable society.