The process of planning and designing public transit service is called “service planning”.

There are a number of activities commonly associated with service planning:

1. Network design
2. Route design and stop layout
3. Frequency determination
4. Timetabling
5. Vehicle scheduling
6. Crew scheduling

These are ordered roughly in terms of a general sequence in time, as well as of a

dependence upon higher-level activities. The general design of a transit network is the
highest level activity, undertaken only rarely or when major new systems (e.g., rail or
express bus) are introduced. The network design then feeds an element of route design
and stop layout, in which the more specific physical facilities for the routes and stops or
stations are implemented. Once routes are in place, the frequency of service may be
determined, and a timetable for vehicle trips (the service) along the route can be
constructed. Once the timetable is created, schedules for vehicles on the route and
throughout the network (i.e., the vehicle cycle for each vehicle in the fleet) can be
created. Finally, work shifts for operators can be generated (a crew schedule), and those
operators are assigned to the work.

The first three activities, in network and route design and frequency determination, tend
to be more strategic in nature, and may only be considered infrequently by transit
planners. These decisions tend to be driven in part by political and economic
considerations, and as such may require careful and strategic thinking on the part of
transit planners. This unit discusses these strategic issues.

The activities of timetabling and vehicle and crew scheduling are considered more
tactical decisions, as these decisions are made as often as the transit agency may
consider reviewing or changing schedules. In many cases, these tactical activities are
assisted by software tools that can generate high quality solutions in a short period of
time, often with direct interaction with the planner. These topics are discussed in the
next unit.

Network designEdit
There are many different ways of structuring a set of transit routes into a network to
provide transit service to a given area. These might include any combination of:
  Radial services, focusing on collecting passengers from outlying areas and bringing them
into a major trip generator (e.g., a downtown area, major employment center, or other
significant destination);
 Cross-town or grid-like routes, focusing on connecting passengers across the area,
perhaps between radial services or among several smaller trip generators; and,
 Direct connections, focusing on moving passengers between major trip generators (e.g.,
between downtown and a high-density residential area, or between a major employer and
downtown).
 Circulators, focusing on collecting and distributing passengers in smaller sub-areas.

Usually, transit networks are made up of some combination of these types of routes,
allowing a satisfactory level of access to most of the region, with a high degree of direct
service to major trip generators. Sometimes, this may involve a combination of modes.
For example, in Boston, the rail systems are strongly radial, while the bus system
provides cross-town and circulator services. The scale image below shows the strong
radial nature of these lines, directed to downtown Boston.
Other systems, particularly bus systems, can include both cross-town and radial services,
allowing more coverage and greater direct access to destinations. One example is the
bus network of New Jersey Transit in and around Newark, shown in the figure below.
One can clearly see both radial routes as well as a strong grid-like structure on the west
side of downtown.

Regardless, in the US, the network structure is usually strongly influenced by political
and economic realities, with strong citizen and political input as well as hard budget
constraints. However, from a transportation perspective, the resulting network may be
characterized in several important ways:

 Geographic coverage, often influenced by political considerations as well as objectives to

provide mobility for lower-mobility populations;
 Temporal coverage, determining what time periods on weekdays and on weekends to
offer service; and,
 Connectivity (direct vs. indirect service), with the desire to connect major trip generators
with direct routes but perhaps allowing transfer trips to serve lower-demand areas.
These characteristics play a major role in estimating demand for the service. Specifically,
the analyst may wish to experiment with a variety of network structures and routes, in
order to estimate the level of demand that each network might support. Well-specified
travel demand models should be able to account for geographic and temporal
coverage, as well as trip connectivity, in forecasting transit usage.

As an important caveat, most transit agencies do not usually approach network design
as if from scratch. Most agencies do have some existing route patterns, and associated
infrastructure (stops, terminals, guideways, etc.) that may often constrain certain route
structures or at least strongly favor maintaining some of the existing routes. As a result,
most agencies consider new elements of the network (new routes and services) as a
complement to existing services, with more modest adjustments to the existing route
structures. However, where new modes of service may be introduced (e.g., rail systems
in traditionally bus-oriented networks), more significant restructuring of service may be
possible, perhaps extending service to new geographic areas, intensifying service in
existing service areas, or supplementing the new mode by directing routes to connect to
and from the new mode.

Route designEdit
In conjunction with network design, a planner must also consider specific routes and
their purpose. The layout of individual routes usually involves some trade-offs in design,
most notably:

 Stop density. Stop density involves the trade-off of passenger access vs. route speed.
Higher stop densities mean that passengers will not have to walk or travel far to get to a
stop, allowing easier access to transit service. However, higher stop densities also mean
that the vehicle may be stopping frequently, reducing the overall operating speed.
 Route length and circuitousness. Route length involves the trade-off of direct service vs.
service reliability. Longer routes allow passengers to get to more potential destinations,
as the route provides direct service to a larger geographic area. But, longer routes may
lead to poor schedule adherence, as service may be more prone to travel time variability
and/or service disruptions.
 Trip generators. The route can serve major trip generators or more minor trip generators,
or some combination of these. Often, routes have termini that coincide with major trip
generators, with higher passenger flows occurring between these major generators.
However, there may also be a need to serve certain geographic areas with modest
demand.

In many cases, some combination of routes can be built into the transit network that
provides some balance in each of these areas. Common route designs include the
following:

 Line haul: high frequency and/or high capacity service on major travel corridors
  Loops (one-way or two-way): coverage for lower-density areas or circulation in and
among activity centers
 Short turn routes: to complement a full route, additional service provided on a shorter
segment (the “short turn”) of the route
 Branching (or split) routes: branching toward the end of the route, with areas served by
only some buses
 Feeder routes: connect to/from line haul from/to lower density areas
 Limited and express routes: only stop at major stops/stations to improve travel times,
balance loads
 Zonal service: only serve some sections in a major corridor

MODULE 2..
The process of planning and designing public transit service is called “service planning”.
There are a number of activities commonly associated with service planning:

1. Network design
2. Route design and stop layout
3. Frequency determination
4. Timetabling
5. Vehicle scheduling
6. Crew scheduling

These are ordered roughly in terms of a general sequence in time, as well as of a

dependence upon higher-level activities. The general design of a transit network is the
highest level activity, undertaken only rarely or when major new systems (e.g., rail or
express bus) are introduced. The network design then feeds an element of route design
and stop layout, in which the more specific physical facilities for the routes and stops or
stations are implemented. Once routes are in place, the frequency of service may be
determined, and a timetable for vehicle trips (the service) along the route can be
constructed. Once the timetable is created, schedules for vehicles on the route and
throughout the network (i.e., the vehicle cycle for each vehicle in the fleet) can be
created. Finally, work shifts for operators can be generated (a crew schedule), and those
operators are assigned to the work.

The first three activities, in network and route design and frequency determination, tend
to be more strategic in nature, and may only be considered infrequently by transit
planners. These decisions tend to be driven in part by political and economic
considerations, and as such may require careful and strategic thinking on the part of
transit planners. This unit discusses these strategic issues.

The activities of timetabling and vehicle and crew scheduling are considered more
tactical decisions, as these decisions are made as often as the transit agency may
consider reviewing or changing schedules. In many cases, these tactical activities are
assisted by software tools that can generate high quality solutions in a short period of
time, often with direct interaction with the planner. These topics are discussed in the
next unit.

Network analysis requires detailed data representing the elements of the network and its properties.
[6]
 The core of a network dataset is a vector layer of polylines representing the paths of travel, either
precise geographic routes or schematic diagrams, known as edges. In addition, information is
needed on the network topology, representing the connections between the lines, thus enabling the
transport from one line to another to be modeled. Typically, these connection points, or nodes, are
included as an additional dataset.[7]
Both the edges and nodes are attributed with properties related to the movement or flow:

 Capacity, measurements of any limitation on the volume of flow allowed, such as the
number of lanes in a road, telecommunications bandwidth, or pipe diameter.
 Impedance, measurements of any resistance to flow or to the speed of flow, such as a
speed limit or a forbidden turn direction at a street intersection
 Cost accumulated through individual travel along the edge or through the node,
commonly elapsed time, in keeping with the principle of friction of distance. For example,
a node in a street network may require a different amount of time to make a particular
left turn or right turn. Such costs can vary over time, such as the pattern of travel time
along an urban street depending on diurnal cycles of traffic volume.
 Flow volume, measurements of the actual movement taking place. This may be specific
time-encoded measurements collected using sensor networks such as traffic counters,
or general trends over a period of time, such as Annual average daily traffic (AADT).

Analysis Methods[edit]
A wide range of methods, algorithms, and techniques have been developed for solving problems
and tasks relating to network flow. Some of these are common to all types of transport networks,
while others are specific to particular application domains. [8] Many of these algorithms are
implemented in commercial and open-source GIS software, such as GRASS GIS and the Network
Analyst extension to Esri ArcGIS.

Optimal routing[edit]
Main articles: Shortest path problem and Dijkstra's algorithm

One of the simplest and most common tasks in a network is to find the optimal route connecting two
points along the network, with optimal defined as minimizing some form of cost, such as distance,
energy expenditure, or time.[9] A common example is finding directions in a street network, a feature
of almost any web street mapping application such as Google Maps. The most popular method of
solving this task, implemented in most GIS and mapping software, is Dijkstra's algorithm.[10]
In addition to the basic point-to-point routing, composite routing problems are also common.
The Traveling salesman problem asks for the optimal (least distance/cost) ordering and route to
reach a number of destinations; it is an NP-hard problem, but somewhat easier to solve in network
space than unconstrained space due to the smaller solution set.[11] The Vehicle routing problem is a
generalization of this, allowing for multiple simultaneous routes to reach the destinations. The Route
inspection or "Chinese Postman" problem asks for the optimal (least distance/cost) path that
traverses every edge; a common application is the routing of garbage trucks. This turns out to be a
much simpler problem to solve, with polynomial time algorithms.

Location analysis[edit]
Main articles: Facility location problem and Location-allocation

This class of problems aims to find the optimal location for one or more facilities along the network,
with optimal defined as minimizing the aggregate or mean travel cost to (or from) another set of
points in the network. A common example is determining the location of a warehouse to minimize
shipping costs to a set of retail outlets, or the location of a retail outlet to minimize the travel time
from the residences of its potential customers. In unconstrained (cartesian coordinate) space, this is
an NP-hard problem requiring heuristic solutions such as Lloyd's algorithm, but in a network space it
can be solved deterministically.[12]
Particular applications often add further constraints to the problem, such as the location of pre-
existing or competing facilities, facility capacities, or maximum cost.

Service areas[edit]
A network service area is analogous to a buffer in unconstrained space, a depiction of the area that
can be reached from a point (typically a service facility) in less than a specified distance or other
accumulated cost.[13] For example, the preferred service area for a fire station would be the set of
street segments it can reach in a small amount of time. When there are multiple facilities, each edge
would be assigned to the nearest facility, producing a result analogous to a Voronoi diagram.[14]

Fault analysis[edit]
A common application in public utility networks is the identification of possible locations of faults or
breaks in the network (which is often buried or otherwise difficult to directly observe), deduced from
reports that can be easily located, such as customer complaints.

Transport engineering[edit]
Main articles: Transport engineering and Traffic flow

Traffic has been studied extensively using statistical physics methods.[15][16][17] Recently a real transport
network of Beijing was studied using a network approach and percolation theory. The research
showed that one can characterize the quality of global traffic in a city at each time in the day using
percolation threshold, see Fig. 1. In recent articles, percolation theory has been applied to study
traffic congestion in a city. The quality of the global traffic in a city at a given time is by a single
parameter, the percolation critical threshold. The critical threshold represents the velocity below
which one can travel in a large fraction of city network. The method is able to identify repetitive traffic
bottlenecks. [18] Critical exponents characterizing the cluster size distribution of good traffic are similar
to those of percolation theory.[19] It is also found that during rush hours the traffic network can have
several metastable states of different network sizes and the alternate between these states. [20]
An empirical study regarding the size distribution of traffic jams has been performed recently by
Zhang et al.[21] They found an approximate universal power law for the jam sizes distribution.
A method to identify functional clusters of spatial-temporal streets that represent fluent traffic flow in
a city has been developed by Serok et al.[22] G. Li et al.[23] developed a method to design an optimal
two layer transportation network in a city.
 MODULE 2

The transportation system is represented by a network of lines; each road and transit
route is drawn as a line on a map or overlay at the same scale as the zone map. The
intersections of the transportation lines are called nodes. Each node is assigned a
unique number, starting with a number somewhat greater than the highest zone
number. . . . The two node numbers at the ends of any link identify that link. A
roadway is defined by the links along its path. The links are stored in the computer
according to their identifying node numbers. Transit routes are identified and stored in
a similar manner, as the string or series of node numbers along the transit route. For
transit routes operating on roadways, the string of node numbers identifies the
roadway nodes traversed by the transit route.

(p. 103) The characteristics of the roadway represented by each link are coded as
attributes of that link. The attributes usually include the length of the link (in miles),
the vehicle capacity of the roadway, and the speed or time of movement along the
link. Depending on the computer program being used, other attributes of the link or
activity along the link may also be coded, such as adjacent land use, character of the
area in which the link is located, whether parking is permitted, and the classification
of the facility that the link represents.