Elderly-oriented demand-responsive bus route optimisation for multiple vehicle types

As elderly populations increase, their transportation needs are gaining significant attention. Conventional routes and stations often fail to meet these needs, which has led to demand-responsive buses (DRBs). However, ordinary DRBs are generally monofunctional. The concept of elderly-oriented DRBs is introduced in this paper. To improve passenger comfort and security, buses are being converted into a variety of models suitable for the elderly and non-elderly, but planning routes for such multi-model buses is challenging. Retrofitting vehicles and staffing them with crews dedicated to elderly passengers would increase costs. The main idea of this research was thus to try to concentrate elder passengers on the fewest possible routes in order to reduce costs. The objective of the model is to minimise the distance and operating costs of public transport. It takes into account constraints such as vehicle capacity, number of vehicles and travel costs. The bus route optimisation model was solved using a genetic algorithm and the validity of the model was verified by comparing the costs with ordinary bus routes and by sensitivity analysis of the variables. The results showed that changing the number of stations had the most significant effect on total vehicle operating costs.