Towards a more realistic simulation of public transit: Generating transit schedules with vehicle circulations

In this study, two approaches are presented to account for vehicle circulations when incorporating GTFS data into the agent-based simulation framework MATSim. The first approach directly builds on an existing data converter; the second approach integrates the external public transit planning tool LinTim into MATSim. Both proposed methodological approaches are successfully used to generate transit schedules with vehicle circulations. Simulation experiments are carried out for the Greater Berlin area and reveal an overall minor impact on the public transit performance from the transport users’ perspective. The number of required public transit vehicles is significantly reduced compared to previous version of the GTFS data converter. Reducing the turnaround time leads to a further reduction in vehicles, however, provides reduced slack times to compensate for delays. The implementation of a disruption shows that the bunching phenomenon and delay propagation is now represented by the model. Thus, the proposed methodology allows for a more sophisticated investigation of transit schedules and delay management concepts.