Modelling bus bunching along a common line corridor considering passenger arrival time and transfer choice under stochastic travel time

This study examines bus bunching along a common-line corridor, considering crucial factors underexplored in existing literature, such as stochastic travel times, passenger arrival patterns, and passenger transfer behaviours. We first develop a bus motion model that captures the interaction between bus trajectories and passenger movement. Then we formulate a reliability-based passenger arrival time choice and a transfer choice model to characterise passengers’ behaviours. Afterwards, the bus motion model and the passenger choice models are integrated, and a Method of Successive Averages type iterative algorithm is developed to obtain stable passenger arrival patterns and transfer choices. Numerical experiments are carried out on a hypothetical network followed by a case with real-world data. Our findings demonstrate that a high transfer demand could amplify the propagation of bus bunching across lines along the common-line corridor. Meanwhile, a 50% increase in transfer demand leads to a 24%–30% rise in headway fluctuation. Furthermore, our results suggest that non-uniform passenger accumulation patterns can restore headway regularity as a result of coordinated passenger movement and bus motions, thus alleviating the persistent deterioration in bus bunching.