Optimal holding times at transfer stations

Most bus transit systems only offer direct service between a small fraction of the origin/destination pairs that they serve. As a consequence, many tr avelers must transfer between bus lines to complete their journey. In this paper schedule control policies are created to minimize transfer time under stochastic conditions. We determine how long a bus should be held at a tra nsfer stop in anticipation of the arrival of passengers from connecting bus lines. In general, the total expected waiting time function may have multi ple local minima. However, we show there exists at most one non-boundary lo cal minimum point for the special case where arrival times of connecting bu ses are identically and normally distributed. An application is provided ba sed on bus lines in Los Angeles County's Metropolitan Transportation Agency to evaluate holding time policies. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All righ ts reserved.