Abstract: Effective connection between urban rail transport and general ground public transport is essential for improving the efficiency of urban public transport systems. We detailedly analyze passenger travel time cost and transit vehicle operating cost of feeder bus system. We construct an optimization model for urban rail transit feeder bus route design and optimize bus line layout and travel frequency with the minimization of total cost of the feeder bus system as an objective, considering such constraints as bus line layout, passenger flow conservation, and vehicle capacity. We also devise an artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm to solve the model based on its characteristics. We apply many neighbor areas search strategy to the algorithm and calibrate its parameters to improve its computation efficiency and stability. Numerical cases show that the algorithm can well optimize the layout of feeder bus routes, and is superior to genetic algorithm in solution quality, stability and computation efficiency.

Key words: urban traffic, feeder bus, bus route optimization, artificial bee colony algorithm