An agent-based evaluation of transit network design

This article presents the design and evaluation of transit networks using a route expansion heuristic and agent-based travel demand simulation. The route expansion mechanism is a type of constructive heuristic algorithm that derives new transit routes by inserting neighbouring nodes into existing routes with the aim of improving the demand coverage. The resulting networks are evaluated with an agent-based travel demand simulation model. The use of agent-based modelling is a departure from the existing route expansion literature and indeed the broader transit network design discipline in which the four step model has been extensively used. The procedure is tested on a bus rapid transit network in the City of Cape Town in South Africa.