Effects of Bus Stop Locations on the Total Time of Bus Systems in Urban Areas

In this study, a multi-objective optimization model was developed to minimize the total time of bus system including passenger travel time and bus operating time. In addition, bus emission was introduced to assess the bus operation based on the pollutant emissions CO, HC, and NO_x. Finally, the proposed methodology was applied to a bus route in Nanjing, China. The results showed that the total time decreased by 520197s by adding a new station between the Gulou station and the Zhujiang Road station, and the corresponding emissions of CO, HC, and NO_x merely increased by 0.87%, 1.07%, and 0.79%, respectively. It indicated that the model was well validated in terms of reliability, and could be used for the analysis and design of bus stop location. Sensitivity analyses were also conducted to investigate the effects of service frequency on the performance of the proposed method.