Comparison of dynamic control strategies for transit operations. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2012.12.010

Abstract

Real-time headway-based control is a key issue to reduce bus bunching in high frequencyurban bus services where schedules are difficult to implement. Several mechanisms havebeen proposed in the literature, but very few performance comparisons are available. Inthis paper two different approaches are tested over eight different scenarios. Both methodologiessolve the same problem, the former based on a deterministic optimization over along-term rolling horizon, while the latter proposes a hybrid predictive approach consideringa shorter horizon and a stochastic evolution of the system. The comparison is conductedthrough scenarios that include three different dimensions: (i) bus capacitieswhich can be reached or not, (ii) service frequencies, considering high and mediumfrequency services and (iii) different load profiles along the corridor. The results show thatthe deterministic approach performs better under scenarios where bus capacity could bereached frequently along the route while the hybrid predictive control approach performsbetter in situations where this does not happen.