Vehicle Scheduling at a Transportation Terminal with Random Delay en Route

Abstract

This paper develops and evaluates a simple model for scheduling vehicle arrivals at transportation terminals where vehicles are randomly delayed en route. Equations are developed for the optimal “slack” time (the time between the scheduled arrival for a feeder line and the scheduled departure for a transfer line) when vehicles are delayed according to an exponential probability distribution. These equations only depend on the average vehicle delay and the line headway on the transfer line. The paper shows that coordinating arrivals with departures is most important when the headway is large relative to average vehicle delay.