Rising population levels lead to increased private car usage and congestion issues. Therefore, providing citizens with high-quality public transport is evident to build and maintain liveable cities. To accommodate dispersed passengers’ demand, integrated public transport systems, combining on-demand bus with fixed public transport systems, are required. On-demand bus transport systems operate with the highest flexibility, without any fixed routes or timetables, and are completely based on passenger demand. Fixed or regular public transport systems operate on fixed routes and timetables, and typically transport a large amount of people from point A to point B.
Even though research on these integrated systems is still in its infancy today, these systems are mostly optimized from an operational perspective, i.e. the fixed public transport network is assumed to be given and unchangeable, while the on-demand service is optimized. With the idea to improve passenger trips even more, integrated public transport should also be optimized from a strategical perspective, by rethinking the design of the fixed transport system given the existence of an on-demand bus service. The aim of this project is to holistically optimize urban public transport
and to acknowledge the interdependencies of both systems.
