CATONSVILLE, MD, July 20, 2021 – Uber and Lyft are popular on-demand travel options, but does that mean trains and buses are a thing of the past? Travelers prefer different modes of transport at different times. So how can all of these modes coexist and do so successfully? New research in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science has developed a model and algorithm for redistributing transport resources based on commuter preferences, resulting in savings of millions.

“Based on case study experiments in New York City, our optimized timetables consistently result in system-wide cost reductions of 0.4% to 3%. This is equivalent to saving millions of dollars per day in rush hour while reducing costs for passengers and transportation service providers.” said Vikrant Vaze of Dartmouth College.

“Transit Planning Optimization under Ride-Hailing Competition and Traffic Congestion” was written by Vaze with Keji Wei from Dartmouth and Alexandre Jacquillat from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This study seeks to understand what would happen if a transport company explicitly considered commuter selection factors and what this would do to the commuter when designing their timetables.

Commuters choose modes of transport based on travel comfort, prices, travel times and traffic congestion. The authors found that the opposite is also true – their choice, in turn, changes traffic patterns and travel times.

The authors find that by taking these two points into account, they can better match the available transport options with the preferences of the passengers – by redistributing public transport resources where they bring the greatest societal benefit.

“In the interests of the entire urban ecosystem, a transportation company should critically assess what types of journeys and travel needs the transit is better equipped for, and at the same time which areas it might be better, and allow on-demand operators a greater proportion of journeys take. Such a well thought-out reconfiguration can benefit multiple stakeholders at the same time, “said Vaze, professor at the Thayer School of Engineering in Dartmouth.” We have found that it leads to better timetables for passengers, better for transport companies and better for the city as a whole , a rare win-win-win situation. ”

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About INFORMS and traffic sciences

Transportation Science is a leading, peer-reviewed scientific journal that focuses on research on all current and future modes of transport and deals with planning and design issues and the related economic, operational and social issues. It is published by INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals. More information is available at http://www.informs.org or @informed.

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