Application of A Route Expansion Algorithm for Transit Routes Design in Grid Networks

Establishing a network of transit routes with satisfactory demand coverage is one of the main goals of transitagencies in moving towards a sustainable urban development. A primary concern in obtaining such anetwork is reducing operational costs. This paper deals with the problem of minimizing construction costsin a grid transportation network while satisfying a certain level of demand coverage. An algorithm isproposed following the general idea of “constructive algorithms” in related literature. The proposedalgorithm, in an iterative approach, selects an origindestination with maximum demand, generates a basicshortestpath route, and attempts to improve it through a route expansion process. The paper reports thescenarios and further details of the algorithm considered for expanding a transit route in a grid network. Arandom 6×10 grid network is applied to report the results. The results support that application of theproposed algorithm notably reduces the operational costs for various amounts of demand coverage.