On April 3 1995, the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission commenced operation of OmniLink flex-route services. OmniLink serves a typical American low density residential-based suburban environment located 30 miles outside of Washington, D.C. The setting is an excellent example of the transit environment which has proven to be so vexing to public transport operators in America. OmniLink services were designed to be a hybrid of fixed-route, fixed-schedule service and demand-responsive services to better serve the suburban market. OmniLink services most closely resemble point deviation services. The new-start services consist of five flex-routes serving 1.5 mile wide corridors along route centrelines. Service is accessible at bus stops and by call-in request for origins and destinations within the service corridor. This service is a test bed for a Federal Intelligent Transportation System Operational Test which is examining the application of real-time trip order-taking, scheduling and dispatching systems to flexible service concepts in a suburban environment. The first thirteen months of service employed manual dispatching methods. The purpose of this paper is to: present the development of the flex-route services, including the application of GIS technology to the service planning process; present the operating history for the first thirteen months of service; assess the performance of these services to date, including measures of productivity, cost-effectiveness and efficiency; and discuss lessons learned including those related to the development of the ITS enhanced call in-take, scheduling and dispatching system.
Abstract