ABSTRACT
The vehicle-scheduling task described in Chapters 6 and 7 considers only one type of transit vehicle. In practice, however, more than one type is used; for example, a bus operation may employ minibuses, articulated and double-decker buses, and standard buses with varying degrees of comfort and different numbers of seats. Commonly, the consideration of vehicle type in transit operations planning involves two considerations:rst, determining the suitable or optimal vehicle size; second, choosing vehicles with different comfort levels, depending on trip characteristics. Certainly, a multicriteria effort may treat both considerations simultaneously, but this is seldom done in practice. The issue of what vehicle type to consider arises when purchasing a vehicle or a ¦eet of vehicles, an undertaking that is not performed frequently. There is a saying that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. Another is that experience is not what happening to us, but what
we do with what is happening to us. In our case, the experience accumulated focuses on the need for an analysis framework in order to decide how many and which type of vehicle to purchase. This chapter attempts to introduce (a) a cost-effective framework for choosing a vehicle’s comfort level, (b) a method for optimal vehicle assignment integrated with the selection of optimal timetable, and (c) the basic tools for analyzing optimal vehicle size.
