Study of the Bus Dynamic Coscheduling Optimization Method under Urban Rail Transit Line Emergency

As one of the most important urban commuter transportation modes, urban rail transit (URT) has been acting as a key solution for supporting mobility needs in high-density urban areas. However, in recent years, high frequency of unexpected events has caused serious service disruptions in URT system, greatly harming passenger safety and resulting in severe traffic delays. Therefore, there is an urgent need to study emergency evacuation problem in URT. In this paper, a method of bus dynamic coscheduling is proposed and two models are built based on different evacuation destinations including URT stations and surrounding bus parking spots. A dynamic coscheduling scheme for buses can be obtained by the models. In the model solution process, a new concept—the equivalent parking spot—is proposed to transform the nonlinear model into an integer linear programming (ILP) problem. A case study is conducted to verify the feasibility of models. Also, sensitivity analysis of two vital factors is carried out to analyze their effects on the total evacuation time. The results reveal that the designed capacity of buses has a negative influence on the total evacuation time, while an increase in the number of passengers has a positive effect. Finally, some significant optimizing strategies are proposed.