A simulation sandbox to compare fixed-route, semi-flexible-transit, and on-demand microtransit system designs

Abstract

With advances in emerging technologies, options for operating public transit services have broadened from conventional fixed-route service through semi-flexible service to on-demand microtransit. Nevertheless, guidelines for deciding between these services remain limited in the real implementation. An open-source simulation sandbox is developed that can compare state-of-the-practice methods for evaluating between the different types of public transit operations. For the case of the semi-flexible service, the Mobility Allowance Shuttle Transit (MAST) system is extended to include passenger deviations. A case study demonstrates the sandbox to evaluate and existing B63 bus route in Brooklyn, NY and compares its performance with the four other system designs spanning across the three service types for three different demand scenarios.

References in corpus (2)

• A dynamic ridesharing dispatch and idle vehicle repositioning strategy with integrated transit transfers
• The pickup and delivery problem with synchronized en-route transfers for microtransit planning

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Hyper-pool: pooling private trips into high-occupancy transit-like attractive shared rides
• Interactive Public Transport Infrastructure Analysis through Mobility Profiles: Making the Mobility Transition Transparent
• Microtransit revenue management informed by citywide travel demand and joint subscription-mode choice modeling