Reliability Analysis of Bus Timetabling Strategy during the COVID-19 Epidemic: A Case Study of Yixing, China

Abstract

How to meet the daily demand for resident transport while limiting the transmission of infectious diseases is a problem of social responsibility of urban transport systems during major public health emergencies. Considering the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic (COVID-19), a bus timetable system based on the “if early, wait, and if late, leave soon” strategy is proposed. Based on public transport vehicle constraints in this system, the concept of reliability is introduced to evaluate public transport timetable systems, and a model based on an event tree is built to calculate the failure rate of urban bus timetables. Then, the public transport situation in Yixing city is used as an example to perform confirmatory analysis, and the fluctuations in the reliability of the bus timetable during the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic are discussed. The research results show that the method proposed in this paper can obtain the overall failure rate of urban bus timetable by traversing the calculation of each round-trip interval and achieve an accurate evaluation of the reliability of bus timetables. During the early, middle, and more recent stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, the failure rate of bus timetables in Yixing city initially decreased and then increased. In the early stage of the outbreak, the failure rate of the Yixing bus timetable was 7.8142. However, the failure rate decreased to 4.3306 and 5.0160 in the middle and late stages of the epidemic, respectively. In other words, the failure rate of the public transport network in the middle and late stages decreased by 44.58% and 35.81%, respectively, compared with that in the early stage. Thus, during major health emergencies, such as the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, the reliability of the urban bus timetable system can be improved by at least 35%, and cross-infection at bus stations can be prevented. The research results verify the feasibility and reliability of the implementation of bus timetabling strategies during major health emergencies.

Evaluation and Analysis of a Method to Real-Name Check Train Tickets during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…However, for A3, this index is not the key factor. is result indicates that the labor intensity of personnel in not significant [25,26].…”

“…Calculate the Eigenvector Corresponding to the Maximum Eigenvalue of Matrix B * D. Substitute equation(25) into equation(5), and all that is left in equation (5) are λ and e. According to these equations, the maximum eigenvalue is λ � 6.5658 and the corresponding eigenvector is e � (−0.1038, 0.0229, −0.055, −0.1148, 0.4502, . .…”

Public transport strategy and epidemic prevention framework in the Context of Covid-19

“…Given the present situation of restrictive capacity, the public transport can be made efficient and effective by redesigning services. The redesign includes adjusting the bus frequency to accommodate maximum possible passengers with physical distancing, leveraging the technology by optimizing the reservation systems based on the demand and travel trend, dynamic station skipping, reducing waiting time, speed controland timely information sharing ( Muñoz et al, 2013 ; Hickman 2001 ; Tirachine and Cats, 2020 ; Junyi Zhang, 2020 ; Gao et al, 2021 ; Dong et al, 2020; Chen and Pan, 2020 ). With proper planning, all the stops can be served during off-peak hours which has low demand.…”

“…Findings of Zhang et al ( 2020 ) indicates higher infection cases and deaths of outbreak occurring in those countries and regions where contingency plans and guidelines for transport systems are less. Coordinated efforts become an urgent need, in terms of tools and methods from policy makers, public transport service providers and passengers to mitigate risk of virus spread in the current and post-crisis ( Tirachine and Cats, 2020 ; Junyi Zhang, 2020 ; Gao et al, 2021 ). Re-designing services, re-allocating resources and re-distributing passenger flows should be part of strategies in tailoring public transport services during COVID-19 crisis and post crisis ( Gkiotsalitis and Cats, 2021 ).…”

“…Despite the risk of coronavirus, public transport stays the only commuting choice for many people, especially lower-income citizens ( PrassenjitLahiri, 2020 ). A need to bring in coordinated efforts in terms of tools and methods from policy makers, public transport service providers and passengers to mitigate risk of virus spread in the current and post-crisis becomes an urgent imperative ( Tirachine and Cats, 2020 ; Junyi Zhang, 2020 ; Gao et al, 2021 ).…”