Modeling Public Bus Scheduling Based on IC Cards Data

The rapid development of economics in China has lead to a substantial increase in vehicle population and serious urban traffic problems. It has great significance to develop public transport and the implementation of a bus priority strategy in China. Bus scheduling is at the core of bus operations management and intelligent scheduling; and the optimization of the bus scheduling program is the key to improve the operational level and enhance the attractiveness. IC card data has a very large value both in the public transportation network planning and operational planning. Aiming at this problem, the technique of multi-objective optimization is used as the core tool. Based on IC card data, this paper develops a mathematical model to research the bus scheduling from the overall perspective. The method converted this complex system decision problem into mathematical models based on the following three objectives: minimizing passengers waiting time, maximizing of passenger’s comfort, and maximizing the bus company’s operating revenue.