An adjustment framework for mitigating the impact of rail transit construction on bus operations

During the construction of rail transit, some road resources are occupied under construction and hence the capacity of affected road sections is reduced. Due to such temporary impact, the low operational efficiency of bus routes when passing these road sections is following suit, which is inevitably detrimental to the short-term traffic conditions and the urban environment. This paper proposes a three-step adjustment framework to actively mitigate the impact of rail transit construction on bus operations. In Step I, a criterion is developed for selecting bus routes significantly affected due to rail transit construction. In Step II, we design a stop-skipping strategy and truncation strategy, and check whether they are opportune to ameliorate the service of each affected bus route. Yet, these two strategies result in a loss of ridership since some previous stops are not served. In Step III, the feeder bus service is further designed to guarantee spatial coverage nearby the construction area. A mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to determine the optimal configuration of the feeder bus service incorporating two strategies. Finally, a case study based on the Sioux-Falls network is carried out to demonstrate that the proposed adjustment framework is conducive to mitigating negative construction effects and reducing costs.