Scheduling multiple vehicle mobility allowance shuttle transit (m-MAST) services

The mobility allowance shuttle transit (MAST) system is an innovative hybrid transit system in which vehicles are allowed to deviate from a fixed route to serve flexible demand. In this paper, we develop an insertion heuristic that economically inserts the deviation requests into the schedule for multiple-vehicle MAST system, which has never been addressed in the literature. The proposed heuristic is validated and evaluated by a set of simulations performed at different demand levels and with different control parameters. By comparing its performance versus the optimal solutions, the effectiveness and quality of the heuristic is confirmed. Compared to its single-vehicle counterpart, the multiple-vehicle MAST prevails in terms of rejection rate, passenger waiting time and overall objective function, among other performance indices.