Schedule for Detour-Type Demand Bus with Regular Usage Data

We propose a scheduling method for a “detour-type demand bus” as a public transportation service suitable for densely populated areas with a “star-type demand distribution” that has a demand accumulation point. To address regular usage, which is the key to public transportation on-demand buses, we consider construction of a schedule for each vehicle from trip data. We designate the schedule for each vehicle constructed from regular usage data as the “basic schedule”. However, one-time reservation usage, which is a feature of a demand bus, is handled by adding a transit point to the basic schedule. The schedule for each vehicle in the stage of responding to this reservation usage is designated as the “operation schedule”. We conducted simulation experiments using data from the Katsura area, a residential suburb of Kyoto, Japan. The proposed method has good results in terms of stable transportation of regular usage, but it is inferior to conventional demand buses in terms of flexible response to reservation usage.