Simulating demand responsive feeder transit services: A case study of Braunschweig

Public transport systems in rural and peri-urban areas are in many cases characterizedby long travel times, low frequencies and irregular services. Because of this, motorizedprivate transport is often the only practicable mode of mobility in this regions. The use ofDemand Responsive Transport (DRT) as feeder systems to mass public transport modespresents a great potential for improvement. This paper investigates the potential of sucha system applied to a case-study of a peri-urban area of Brunswick, Germany. For that,the current bus line was replaced by a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line with DRT as feedersystems. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed system and provide abenchmark against the current public transport offer, multiple trips to the city center withthe different transport modes were simulated. The agent-based microscopic simulationEclipse SUMO (Simulation of Urban MObility) was used as framework. The scenario ofthe DRT systems was simulated by SUMO coupled to a developed dispatching algorithm.The results show the potential of the proposed system due to the lower travel times, higherfrequency and grater service area. Travel times were even comparable with the travel timesof private car-based modes, which could lead to a potential increase in deman.