The integration of urban and rural transit networks is a prerequisite for the integration of urban and rural transportation systems. With the promotion of rural revitalization and new urbanization, the existing transit network operated separately in urban and rural areas is insufficient in meeting the travel demands of urban and rural residents. It is necessary to plan the urban and rural transit network rationally and to enhance the overall system performance of the urban and rural transit network. This paper proposes a biobjective model to optimize the integrated urban–rural transit network. The model minimizes both passengers’ and bus operators’ costs by optimizing the bus routes and frequencies simultaneously. Furthermore, we propose a subregional operations model and explore a performance comparison between the integrated and subregional optimization approaches. The genetic algorithm is developed to solve the proposed models. Finally, we conduct numerical experiments to identify the efficacy of the proposed models and algorithms. The results indicate that the integrated operation of the urban–rural transit network has more optimization space than the subregional operation, and can effectively reduce the number of transfers. Furthermore, under integrated operations, changes in operating costs have a more pronounced impact on total passenger travel time. When the demand is within a particular range, the integrated operation generates a shorter total passenger travel time than the subregional operation for the exact operating cost. In addition, the Pareto‐optimal solution generated under varying interregional demands provides a trade‐off between the total passenger travel time and the operating costs of the bus operator.
Liu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.