Efficiency in public transportation: a new flow direction method for optimizing multi-route networks

Transit users generally travel between different pairs of stops on the transit line. Therefore, decision-makers should consider the route designs for each passenger’s benefit. In this study, the factor of the number of public transit passengers is combined with trip coefficients such as the route circuity coefficient used to determine the efficiency of public transportation (PT) vehicles. The flow direction performance (FDP), a novel criterion based on the circuity coefficient in PT, is developed. Accordingly, the flow direction method (FDM) a new hybrid metaheuristic optimization method that determines the optimum PT routes, is created. FDM calculates the optimum routes between several predetermined origin points and terminal points. Both sequences of stations and the transit route are optimized at the same time. We tested FDM’s performance on 2 benchmark and 3 real case network samples. Test results show the effectiveness of FDP and robustness of FDM on multi-route problems.