Bus frequency optimisation considering user behaviour based on mobile bus applications

In this study, a model for bus frequency optimisation was presented, which determined the optimal bus frequencies aiming to minimise the users' total travel cost. Unlike past researches, where the impacts of real-time information were ignored, the user behaviours affected by mobile applications were considered in this study. The effects of bus real-time information on user behaviours had been proved by some other researches. By assigning a user's trip to three stages (pre-trip, on-board and end-trip), four different user behaviours were taken into account in the model building process: shortest total travel time, shortest pre-trip time, shortest walking time and shortest riding time. In addition to the object bus line and stops on it, other bus lines and stops serving the same traffic zones were also considered. The demand was given in the form of an origin-destination (OD) matrix. Each value in the OD matrix represented the passenger amount from one zone to another. Finally, the illustrated model was tested by four cases and the results showed a good performance.