A New Sequential Approach to Periodic Vehicle Scheduling and Timetabling

When evaluating the operational costs of a public transport system, the most important factor is the number of vehicles needed for operation. In contrast to the canonical sequential approach of first fixing a timetable and then adding a vehicle schedule, we consider a sequential approach where a vehicle schedule is determined for a given line plan and only afterwards a timetable is fixed. We compare this new sequential approach to a model that integrates both steps. To represent various operational requirements, we consider multiple possibilities to restrict the vehicle circulations to be short, as this can provide operational benefits. The sequential approach can efficiently determine public transport plans with a low number of vehicles. This is evaluated theoretically and empirically demonstrated for two close-to real-world instances.