Crew Size Determination for Terminal Queuing Operation of a Bus Route

Abstract

High demand for public transport and hectic traffic conditions subjects the bus operations on a bus route in cities of developing countries to a terminal queuing process: buses and crews are placed into queues at terminals waiting for an assignment of a trip after they complete a trip. For this type of bus operation, complementary guidelines for real-time bus and crew scheduling are discussed, followed by the development of formulae for the relationship between hired and daily crew sizes based on the work requirements by bus schedules and holiday variations, which can be used to determine minimum crew sizes to cover work requirements. A case study on a depot in the Bangkok bus transit system was used to illustrate the formulae. The results show the insufficiency of crew sizes employed by the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA), verifying the inefficiency of the current operation.