ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the first activity of the operational planning process described in Chapter 1: public transit route design and evaluation at the network level. The problem addressed is that of how to design a new transit network or to redesign an existing network. Naturally, this activity would be appropriate only very infrequently because of the disruption that would be imposed on passengers if wholesale changes were made to the transit network. In addition, many transit agencies have not gone through such a reappraisal, mainly because of the lack of clear-cut, practical and measurable design criteria for evaluating the ‘goodness’ of transit routes and comparing sets of routes. Theodore Roosevelt said: “Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time”. Thus, a design and evaluation tool may provide a timely boost for reconstructing transit routes, although one should bear in mind the required inter-connectivity of a transit network.
