## When Periodic Timetables are Suboptimal

Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-9151
• The timetable is the essence of the service offered by any provider of public transport'' (Jonathan Tyler, CASPT 2006). Indeed, the timetable has a major impact on both operating costs and on passenger comfort. Most European agglomerations and railways use periodic timetables in which operation repeats in regular intervals. In contrast, many North and South American municipalities use trip timetables in which the vehicle trips are scheduled individually subject to frequency constraints. We compare these two strategies with respect to vehicle operation costs. It turns out that for short time horizons, periodic timetabling can be suboptimal; for sufficiently long time horizons, however, periodic timetabling can always be done in an optimal way'.

Author: Ralf Borndörfer, Christian Liebchen ZIB-Report Fahrplan; Nahverkehr; Taktfahrplanperiodic timetable; public transport; trip timetable 90-XX OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING / 90Bxx Operations research and management science / 90B06 Transportation, logistics 90-XX OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING / 90Bxx Operations research and management science / 90B20 Traffic problems DFG Reseach Center Matheon "Mathematics for Key Technologies" Technische Universität Berlin 2007/11/01 ZIB-Report (07-29) 1438-0064 Appeared in: Operations Research Proceedings 2007. Jörg Kalcsics, Stefan Nickel (eds.) Springer 2008, pp. 449-454

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