Transit Coordination Using Integer-Ratio Headways

Coordination of transit routes is essential in reducing the travel time for connecting passengers, thus improving the service quality of the transit system. Perfect coordination can be achieved through the usage of common headways; however, this leads to an increase in operational costs, particularly when the variance of route headways is high. In this case, route coordination can be achieved through integer-ratio headways, where the headway of each coordinated route is an integer multiple of a base cycle. In this paper, we propose a novel genetic algorithm that creates clusters of routes whose coordination reduces the transfer time for connecting passengers. The objective is to minimize the total system cost, which includes the in-vehicle, waiting, and transfer costs for all the passengers served by the transit system and the operating cost of all transit vehicles. The experimental study conducted on one transit network from literature and a new network based on the Istanbul rail system demonstrates that this approach produces superior results compared with literature.