Customized bus route planning based on taxi order data in a 'many-to-one' scenario

Demand identification and route planning are important considerations for the development of customized buses. In the demand identification section, we first identify potential scenarios for customized buses based on the stability and high frequency of passenger flows using taxi order data, then select OD areas in "many-to-one" scenarios and determine passenger demands information between each OD area. In the route planning section, based on spatio-temporal clustering of passenger demands to determine candidate stations for customized buses, customized buses route planning model is constructed with the objective of minimizing passenger travel costs and maximizing operator profits, while considering constraints such as passenger travel time windows and vehicle capacity. In order to balance passenger satisfaction and operator profitability, a dynamic fare function is introduced to calculate the operator's ticket revenue instead of using a fixed fare. The results of the validation using taxi order data from Xi'an demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed customized bus route planning design method in "many-to-one" scenarios. It enables pre-assessment of route profitability, providing decision support for the establishment of customized bus services.