An Exact Solution Approach for the Bus Line Planning Problem with Integrated Passenger Routing

The bus line planning problem or transit network design with integrated passenger routing is a challenging combinatorial problem. Although well-known benchmark instances for this have been available decades, the state of art lacks optimal solutions these instances. branch and bound algorithm, presented in paper, introduces three novel concepts to determine solutions: (1) new pool generation method based on dominance, (2) introduction essential links, i.e., links which can be determined beforehand must present solution, (3) representation adding only extra edges. Next presenting newly obtained solutions, each abovementioned examined isolation experiments, it shown that they contribute significantly success algorithm.