Multi-agent Based Bus Route Optimization for Restricting Passenger Traffic Bottlenecks in Disaster Situations

This paper focuses on the passenger traffic bottlenecks occurred in the bus route network in disaster situations and proposes the multi-agent based bus route optimization method to resolve such bottlenecks by generating the networks which can effectively transport many stranded persons including ones who wait around the station as the passenger traffic bottlenecks. For this purpose, the proposed method modifies the bus route networks generated as usual conditions to suitably pass many bus lines to and redistribute the buses among the bus lines according to the number of passengers. The intensive simulations have revealed the following implications: (1) the proposed bus route network optimization method generates the route network which is suitable for passenger traffic bottlenecks; (2) the proposed method decreases a risk of the bottlenecks; and (3) our method transports the passengers faster than those by the conventional one in various virtual disaster situations.