A bus network design problem for a suburban residential area in Hong Kong

Abstract

A real bus network design problem in a suburban residential area in Hong Kong is investigated. The network provides bus services from origins inside this area to outside destinations in the city. The problem aims to improve the existing bus network by reducing the number of transfers and the total travel time of the users. This has been achieved by the proposed integrated solution method which can solve the route design and frequency setting problems simultaneously. In the proposed method, a genetic algorithm which tackles the route design problem is hybridized with a neighborhood search heuristic which tackles the frequency setting problem. A new representation scheme and specific genetic operators are developed so that the genetic algorithm can search all possible route structures, rather than selecting from an initial set of predefined routes. The proposed method reduces the number of transfers and total travel time by 20.6% and 7.0% respectively.