Integration of freight transportation in demand responsive transport systems

Abstract: Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) describes public transport modes, which do not run on a fixed schedule but the customers can order their trip including time windows, origin and destinations themselves. Especially for rural areas with lower demand for passengers, DRT systems seem to be suitable concepts. On the other hand, high costs and frequent times, in which no passenger requests a trip, can make it difficult to operate these systems. One idea to increase the efficiency of DRT systems is to integrate freight transportation and deliver products, which are ordered online from local shops, to the final customer. This thesis investigates the necessary data and the impacts following from the integration for the FLEXIBUS, a DRT system in the Bavarian town of Krumbach. The Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search (ALNS) is used as an optimization algorithm to create a model for the integration of freight transportation in the case of the FLEXIBUS. Different scenarios are tested on how the pickup and delivery could look like (e.g. with a central pickup station). The model demonstrates that the pickup of the product at the shop and delivery to the final customer is the most appropriate concept. The model suggests that the increase in operational cost can be equaled by a low fare for the transportation, which makes this concept economically sustainable. On the other hand, the integration leads to higher waiting times per passengers although they are still within an acceptable range. In-vehicle times are not affected as much by the implementation of the system. The integration of freight transportation can lead to fewer emissions compared to costumers, which take the car to the shop. The actual results for emissions depend highly on the temporal and spatial distribution of the packages as well as their amount.