Public transport is crucial for providing accessible mobility in cities and communities. It goes beyond trams, buses, and trolleybuses, often including minibuses. Public transport enables people to reach work, housing, education, and leisure activities efficiently and economically, particularly in densely populated areas.
As a socially important service, public transport is typically provided or regulated by the government. However, capital investments in its development are rarely fully recovered, and operating costs are often not covered by fares.
The value of public transport lies in time and resource savings for people’s mobility, which contributes to increased GDP. Access to high-speed public transport can also enhance the value of real estate through transit-oriented development (TOD).
Ensuring transport accessibility is a pressing issue for cities, regional governments, and large enterprises. Optimizing public transport routes and achieving wide coverage with cost efficiency is crucial. Our experts have extensive experience in optimizing routes, from individual ones to comprehensive city-wide projects, including suburbs. Optimization criteria can range from cost reduction per passenger to improving service quality.
In our work, we focus on transport demand rather than existing passenger flows. Passenger traffic depends on the interaction between transport demand (people’s needs for mobility) and transport supply (specific characteristics of public transport routes). Passenger traffic alone does not necessarily reflect the actual transport demand and can be influenced by factors such as service quality, price, or alternative options.
To optimize public transport routes, we use specialized transport models that reflect current or projected transport demand. Existing passenger flows are primarily used for model calibration, not as the main data source for optimization.
To determine where people need to travel, both public transport trips and car trips are considered, as car trips represent potential demand for public transport. Hypotheses are then created for trunk and access routes based on specified criteria.
With the help of specialized software, potential passengers are redistributed across a hypothetical public transport network, and indicators of network efficiency are established based on per-passenger or per-kilometer metrics.
The optimization process involves iterative adjustments and the creation of subsequent hypotheses until an optimal scheme and operating parameters for the public transport network are achieved.
Engaging a wider range of stakeholders in the optimization process improves the final result. Our transparent approach allows us to conduct workshops involving citizens, making them co-authors of the new public transport network scheme. This increases the chances of faster implementation.
Our experts have experience in optimizing public transport routes at various planning stages, from strategic concepts to tactical 1-route optimizations for cities or local communities.
To optimize routes and networks effectively, data on available transport, transport demand, and preferably a transport model of the city or region are required, along with passenger flow data for calibration and desired optimization criteria.
Feel free to reach out to us with any questions. Route and network optimization for public transport is one of our favorite projects as it directly improves people’s quality of life, increases their income, and saves their most valuable resource—time.
