Multiline holding based control for lines merging to a shared transit corridor

ABSTRACT

In transit corridors, multiple lines share a sequence of consecutive stops to provide higher joint frequency in higher demand areas. A key challenge is to coordinate the transition from single line to joint operation. A holding control strategy aimed at minimizing passenger travel times is introduced for lines merging into a shared corridor, accounting for the coordination of vehicle arrivals from the merging lines as well as the regularity of each line. The criterion is tested using an artificial network and a real-world network to analyze the impact of demand distribution and compare cooperative versus single line control. We illustrate how the real-time strategy yields overall passenger gains, depending on the composition of different user groups. Results are assessed based on operation and passenger performance indicators and show that coordination is achieved. When combined with joint control in the common part, the proposed approach achieves consistent network-wide travel time benefits.

KEYWORDS:

• Line coordination
• corridor management
• fork line operations
• holding control

Acknowledgements

The data in this study was kindly provided by SLL, the Transport Administration of Stockholm County Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Georgios Laskaris http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1581-7227

Oded Cats http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4506-0459

Erik Jenelius http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4106-3126

Marco Rinaldi http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7027-7548

Francesco Viti http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1803-4527

Additional information

Funding

The authors of this research are financially supported by the ADAPT-IT (Analysis and Development of Attractive Public Transport through Information Technology) project (2014-03874) which is financed by Vinnova as part of ERA-NET Transport Future Travelling, by the TRANS-FORM (Smart transfers through unravelling urban form and travel flow dynamics) project funded by NWO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) grant agreement 438.15.404/298 as part of JPI Urban Europe ERA-NET CoFound Smart Cities and Communities initiative, and by the FNR-CORE project eCoBus C16/IS/11349329 (Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg).