Optimal Frequency of Public Transport: Examination of a Simple Method in a Small City

The task of finding the optimal frequency of a public transport service is a complex one, with numerous important research efforts dating half a century back. The contribution of this study is to translate this complex problem into a practice-ready form, with the aim of making decades of research accessible to a wider audience. Central to the analysis is the pre-existing square-root rule, with the core idea to balance passengers' costs from waiting time against the operator's costs of providing the service. New versions of the square-root rule are proposed, and their accuracy is examined.