Two-Phase Approach for Designing Bus-Based Park-and-Ride System: Case Study of Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Public transit network design is a very important part of urban transportation planning. In this paper, a new two-phase approach is proposed to design the bus-based park-and-ride system. In the first phase, park-and-ride facilities are located at the periphery of the traditional central business district. A new bus routing problem formulation is proposed to determine the optimal routes of urban bus fleet in the second phase. In the new formulation, park-and-ride facilities are modeled as depots, and each new urban bus route originates from a specific park-and-ride. Because the developed approach is non deterministic polynomial-time-hard and new to the literature, an efficient hybrid Genetic Algorithm and Ant Colony Optimization, referred to as GACO, is used to solve large-scale problems. At last, the developed approach is applied to design the bus-based park-and-ride system in Isfahan, Iran. Obtained results show the effectiveness of the developed approach.