Diagnostic-Oriented and Evaluation-Driven Framework for Bus Route Performance Improvement

Abstract

This paper develops a diagnostic-oriented and evaluation-driven framework that can bridge the gap between transit performance evaluation and improvement prioritization at the route level, where the roles of government agencies, transit operators, and passengers are incorporated. In the proposed framework, input and output variables are extracted from multiple data sources to evaluate technical efficiency and service effectiveness of bus routes, and after which, the inefficient bus routes are analyzed through an improvement diagnosing process featured with route categorization and improvement direction identification. Three alternative strategies, namely, adjusting single critical input or output strategy, adjusting multiple critical input or output strategy, and simultaneously controlling both input and output strategy are developed. Recommendations for selecting these strategies are also provided for transit agencies to develop practical solutions. The framework is applied and validated in a case study for the service performance improvement of 23 bus routes in Jinan, China.