Generalized Auto-Sequencing Bus Headway Control Formulation

In a BRT system, for an efficient planning and management of fleets and drivers, precision of operations is required at the intervals provided. However, sometimes actions are taken that change the order of buses on the circuit, such as overtaking. Despite their impact on operations, these changes are not fully addressed by main headway control algorithms found in the literature and, when considered, they are dealt with enumerating processes to decide on the reordering of buses. To mitigate this issue, this paper presents a generalized formulation for auto-sequencing buses in headway control strategies. The proposed methodology allows the modeling of overtaking, injection, and removal of buses, without resorting to enumerating methods for bus ordering. The obtained results demonstrate that the proposed formulation can handle the events of change of order in a BRT circuit while, at the same time, controlling the headway between the buses and reducing the waiting time for passengers. Thus, the generalized auto-sequencing method is a framework that can be used to augment other control strategies already present in the literature.