A synthetic indicator for structuring resilient public transport operation

ABSTRACT

This study introduces a synthetic resilience indicator as a unified analytical tool to evaluate public transport resilience, assessing performance changes in bus networks against random disruptions. This methodology measures the cumulative impact of disruptions, considering the network’s capacity for maintaining planned functionality (robustness and reliability) and recoverability (i.e., route diversity), factoring in network topology, passenger flow, and resource diversity. This paper analyzes the impact of disruptions at network and station levels by applying an index to six benchmark networks. Our findings reveal: (1) networks with high station connectivity maintain robustness and flow; (2) a clear link between flow reduction and alternate routes highlights route diversity’s value; (3) interplay between topological and flow-related network attributes underlines the need for an aggregated analytical approach. The proposed index can be used as an optimization goal during route network design; informing operators regarding the impact of design choices on future network properties.

KEYWORDS:

• Resilience
• robustness
• reliability
• recoverability
• disruption
• synthetic index

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, S. M. Hassan Mahdavi, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research (IFCPAR/CEFIPRA); as a collaboration project between the department of Grettia, Cosys, University Gustave Eiffel, Paris, France, and Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Programme (TRIPP), at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India.

Notes on contributors

S. M. Hassan Mahdavi

S. M. Hassan Mahdavi, Ph.D. is currently an R&D lead and a researcher in urban mobility management, resilience, and simulation at the Department of New Shared Mobility Solutions, Institute VEDECOM, Versailles, France. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), India. Following his doctoral studies, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University Gustave Eiffel-IFSTTAR, in the COSYS/GRETTIA laboratory, focusing on public transit operation and disruption management. His research interests include multi-agent systems, automated and shared mobility services, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) applications, urban resilience, simulation, and traffic modeling.

Neila Bhouri

Neila Bhouri, Ph.D. HDR is a senior researcher at the University Gustave Eiffel-IFSTTAR. She obtained her Ph.D. in Automatic Control from the University Paris XI-Orsay and her HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) from the University Paris-Est Marne La Vallée. She has been a researcher for thirty years in the field of multi-modal transportation modeling, control, and quality of service. She conducts her research at the COSYS/GRETTIA laboratory where she is co-responsible for the “modeling and simulation for sustainable and intelligent mobility”. Previously, she was a researcher at INRETS (1991–1993) where she developed an activity on air traffic control, then an Assistant Professor at the University of Tunisia (1993–1999) where she taught Control, Operational Research, and Traffic Engineering. She was a member of the CM of the COST ARTS action. She is Vice-Chair of the IFAC Transport Committee, and a member of the Industrial Committee (ACC). She also performs as an expert with institutions such as OECD and the French ministry of transport.