A GIS spatial planning model for bus routing

Abstract

The planning of transit routes requires understanding demographics, land use and travel patterns of an area. The dynamic nature of these systems necessitates regular review and analysis to ensure that transit system continues to meets the needs of the population it serves. Part of the route location and analysis problem requires estimating the population in the service area of a route to calculate the ridership. It is based on this estimation of the ridership transit routes are designed. Previous ridership estimation methods consider only distance as the measure of accessibility. There are some more factors that influence the accessibility of the pedestrians in reaching transit routes such as natural barriers like the slope or gradient of the earth surface, and man-made barriers like the community walls, etc. In this study a GIS spatial planning model is developed which can take into consideration the above factors that affect accessibility and better estimate the ridership arriving at routes. Using the ridership estimated the model also designs a bus route which is optimal from both users and operators point of view.