Introduction of a rail based mass rapid transport system (MRTS) would change the travel pattern of public transport users considerably. The MRTS serves as the trunk routes with higher passenger demand and the bus service will feed into the MRTS system. A detailed methodology is adopted for the following important stages: reconnaissance, database generation, planning of feeder bus routes, and restructuring of the bus transit system with the commissioning of the MRTS/feeder bus system. The methodology for planning of the feeder bus system broadly comprises of estimation of total passenger demand, sub-model for estimation of feeder bus passenger demand, generation of sub-model of feeder routes, and scheduling sub-model to allocate trips/buses for each feeder route. The methodology for restructuring the bus transit system includes estimation of travel demand satisfied by this system, identification of existing routes to be retained and those to be deleted, scheduling of buses on the retained routes. This paper deals in detail with each of the steps mentioned which would help the planners in this important exercise of planning of feeder bus routes for a large MRTS network. (A) The French title of the paper is: "Étude optimale des itinéraires des bus de raccordement pour un système de transport de masse rapide".
Abstract