To accurately capture the measurement of bus reliability and evaluate whether the transit system is properly operated an evaluation framework is established to assess the reliability of the transit system from different stratifications including stops routes and network levels.The bus operation data of the Hefei city is analyzed as a case study.Comparison is conducted to show the improvement made by using the advanced method and an example of adding exclusive bus lanes to the existing bus route is provided. The proposed advanced method can avoid the shortcomings of the traditional method.For example the value of the reliability using the traditional coefficient of variation CV is not between 0 and 1 and the value of reliability can decrease with the increase in the transit headway etc. The case study shows that the advanced method can represent the real operation condition of the transit system and can be used to evaluate the transit headway reliability more reasonably.
Due to the fact that headway is a key factor to be considered in bus scheduling, this paper proposes a bi-level programming model for optimizing bus headway in public transit lines. In this model, with the interests of bus companies and passengers in mind, the upper-level model＇s objective is to minimize the total cost, which is affected by frequency settings, both in time and economy in the transit system. The lower-level model is a transit assignment model used to describe the assignment of passengers＇ trips to the network based on the optimal bus headway. In order to solve the proposed model, a hybrid genetic algorithm, namely the genetic algorithm and the simulated annealing algorithm （GA-SA）, is designed. Finally, the model and the algorithm are tested against the transit data, by taking some of the bus lines of Changzhou city as an example. Results indicate that the proposed model allows supply and demand to be linked, which is reasonable, and the solving algorithm is effective.
The common phenomenon of uneven headway in bus service is explored based on the automatic vehicle location （AVL） data of Route 2 in Yichun City of Jiangxi province from 6：00 to 9：00 in the morning. The headway regularity of two stages 6： 00--7：00 and 7： 00--9：00 is comparatively analyzed, and it is found that both the traffic conditions and the passenger demand affect headway regularity. A bus arrival model, which assumes that the dwell time of a bus is linear in headway, is built to probe the effect of scheduled headway, and the model is simulated by Matlab. The simulation results reveal that the departure intervals and fluctuations affect headway regularity. Longer intervals and less fluctuation mean higher regularity of headway. And, the fluctuation has a more obvious influence on headway regularity than the interval. Controlling the fluctuations of scheduled headway can effectively raise the regularity of headway and improve the level of public transport service.
