Resilient public transport services

Funding: Keolis Nederland
Project: Resilient public transport services
Timeline: Dec 2020-Nov 2022
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Karst T. Geurs at k.t.geurs@utwente.nl
Daily supervisor: Dr. Konstantinos Gkiotsalitis at k.gkiotsalitis@utwente.nl.
EngD trainee: Zakir Farahmand at z.h.farahmand@utwente.nl.

This project will investigate how bus operations in the Twente area are affected by adverse weather conditions and potential other disruptions and how Keolis can prepare and respond to for example adverse weather conditions. This requires the scheduling of systems that have the intrinsic ability to adjust their functioning prior to, during, or following changes and disturbances, so that they can sustain required operations under both expected and unexpected conditions.

Improving the operations of existing public transport services taking into consideration potential disturbances poses a specific technical challenge that will be addressed in this EngD project. It is expected that the outcome of this EngD project will lead to a more robust public transport system with fewer negative experiences for travellers, and lower costs for society.

Specific design challenges that will be addressed in this EngD project are:
·         Examining the effect of disruptions on public transport use and services
·         Developing a decision support tool to device robust public transport schedules that considers short term forecasts of travel demand
·         Analyzing the impact of disruption scenarios on public transport operations
·         Examining the impacts of small case intervention measures on public transport operations and user satisfaction