Self-organizing Buses : a Headway-based Approach

Abstract: Urban transportation systems are a vital part of everyday life nowadays. One common, but difficult issue in this area is bus bunching which means that buses close in on each other eventually ending up platooning when in operation. This leads to inefficiency and passenger delay. The intent of this report is to develop a model for mitigating delays in urban transport by reducing bus bunching. Our approach is to have buses selforganize and focus on maintaining a consistent headway between buses. We propose using Markov chains in the algorithm. By assigning control points along the bus line that have the ability to evaluate the location of the buses. This dynamic property allows for a quick response to the unpredictability of urban traffic and an increase in effective use of the transportation system. Results show that self-organizing, headway-based control has the potential to significantly increase efficiency in urban transport.