Optimization of bus dispatching from any given terminal

Abstract

The problems of scheduling and schedule co-ordination have conflicting objectives related to user’s cost, operator’s cost, overloading and crew deployment hours. Passengers would like to have bus service where there is less waiting time. Operators on the other hand would like to have profit with lesser vehicle operating cost and a minimum number of buses. When the service of buses is considered, passengers would like to have less crowding in buses but operators would like to have higher load factors to increase revenues. The crew would like to have less working hours and there are legal requirements in crew working hours. The minimum economic cost is the main consideration in bus dispatching when considering as a country. When there is a mechanism to find out an average headway for a route for a day considering above four factors and economic cost to the country while satisfying all parties involved, then regulators can apply that mechanism to decide average headways on a route. As a mechanism of finding average headway for a route for a day, an improved dispatching process was introduced in this study to find out the average headway considering the financial costs, economic costs, overloading and crew deployment hours involved in bus dispatching.