Enhancing Underutilized Bus Routes with Advance Reservations and Semiflexible Routing

This paper seeks to improve an underutilized conventional bus route by converting it into a semiflexible transit system where passengers provide advance notice of their intended stops, allowing buses to skip downstream stops without demand by taking shortcuts. This approach increases stop density, reduces walking distances to and from bus stops, and maintains operational efficiency. To design this system, we develop optimization models that maximize the number of stops while adhering to tour duration and arrival time constraints. A case study in Allegany County, Maryland, demonstrates significant enhancements for routes that were both underutilized (where the probability of a stop lacking demand exceeded 45%) and had layouts conducive to substantial shortcuts. In these instances, the number of stops can be increased by up to 160%, with the actual improvement depending on route configuration, passenger demand, and advance notice requirements. Funding: Financial support from the the National Science Foundation [Grant 2055347] is gratefully acknowledged. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2024.0561 .