This study envisions a jointly designed transit system comprised of a fixed-route (FR) service and a paratransit (PT) service. The integration of the two services is inspired by the potential application of modular autonomous vehicles, or pods, in transit. Constrained by a fixed budget, the operator of the joint system aims to minimize the total user cost by first allocating the pods between the two services and then optimizing each service. To formulate the operator's design problem, we propose a stylized model, in which the FR service features a simple 2D grid route structure overlaying on a square city, and the PT service is designed as a general ride-sharing system that can be configured in different modes of operations. A case study is conducted using transit data from the Chicago region. The findings from the case study will be discussed.
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About the speaker: Dr. Marco Nie is currently a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University. He received his B.S. in Structural Engineering from Tsinghua University, his M.S. from National University of Singapore and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. Dr. Nie’s research covers a variety of topics in the areas of transportation systems analysis, transportation economics, and sustainable transportation. Dr. Nie had served as a member of the TRB committees on Transportation Network Modeling and Traffic flow Theory and Characteristics. He is currently an Area Editor for Transportation Science and Networks and Spatial Economics, an Associate for Service Science, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Transportmetrica-B and Transportation Research Part B. Dr. Nie’s research has been supported by National Science Foundation, Transportation Research Board, US Department of Transportation, US Department of Energy, and Illinois Department of Transportation.