Innovative On-Demand Transit for First-Mile Trips: A Cutting-Edge Approach

Abstract

As a result of the lack of access to efficient public transit in suburban areas, residents often have to use their own vehicles to commute either within the area, to neighboring regions, or to a public transit hub (PTH). Thanks to information and communication technologies, on-demand transit (ODT) is a potential solution being proposed and considered by transit agencies. Although ODT has shown the potential to enhance transit level of service, its efficiency depends on different parameters such as demand spatial and temporal distribution or the configuration of the service. In this study, we propose a novel configuration for an ODT service and apply it to the first part of a commuter’s trip, or the commuter’s “first mile.” The proposed configuration depends on the availability of smart devices installed at bus stops. Passengers request their rides via smart devices and receive real-time and personalized information about their ride requests to travel to a PTH. The proposed ODT service is modeled with the Simulation of Urban Mobility or SUMO simulation framework. To evaluate the performance of the ODT service, it is applied to the city of Terrebonne in Quebec, Canada. The proposed service is compared with existing bus transit operating in the area as well as a door-to-PTH service. The results of the comparison analysis reveal that the proposed ODT service may result in a significant 36% reduction in total travel time as well as a 41% reduction in detour time compared with the existing bus transit service. A detailed sensitivity analysis is also conducted to capture the impacts of different parameters, variables, and dispatching algorithms on the service performance.