A New Solution For The Last Mile Problem Of The Beijing Rapid Transit Network

The rapid transit network, including subway, bus rapid transit system(BRT) and expressway buses, is the most important part of the Beijingpublic transportation system, which delivers over40percent of the wholetransit ridership every day. However, in many cases, the advantages of therapid transit network are decreased because of the inefficient connectionsbetween the rapid transit stations/stops and the origins or destinations,which is often referred to as “the last mile problem”. The plan of the localshuttle bus system offers an all-new choice to improve the final legconnectivity of the transportation system. The shuttle buses operate inshort circle routes, linking the rapid transit stations/stops and the officebuildings, residential houses, apartment buildings and many other sites inlocal areas together. Buses of smaller sizes are used for these lines notonly to avoid the congestion, but also to serve in a short interval less than5minutes. Due to the same reason, the current long-distance bus routesare cut into short ones in the new plan. GIS is the key method todetermine the certain routes, stops and bus intervals of the local shuttlebus system. Based on the detailed statistics of the populations of localareas and the street-level traffic data, an innovative layout of the local shuttle bus system is proposed in this paper, via the multiple-route,maximal-covering/shortest-path (MSMCSP) model and PSO model. Themodels are applied to the local shuttle bus routes in Hepingli Area,Dongcheng District, Beijing. Results show that it is possible to improvethe efficiency, convenience and comfort of the public transit system bythe application of the local shuttle bus system theory. The planning of buslines is evaluated by the buffer analysis method, to make sure whether itis effective. Cost control problem of the shuttle system is also discussedin this paper.