PhD defence A. (Ayman) Abdelwahed

Dissertation in short:

Urban mobility has been facing several challenges in the recent years due to the increasing populations and private vehicles ownership, which led to several negative environmental and social impacts in big cities. Thus, shifting towards the more sustainable and cleaner modes of urban mobility has become an urgent need. In this dissertation, we investigate how public transit bus networks can contribute to solving this problem and enhance urban mobility systems. Namely, we study how to make transit bus networks more sustainable to the environment while offering a more convenient and better service level to passengers.

First, we study the problem of making the transition from conventional to electric transit bus networks. We formulate and implement an efficient mixed-integer linear programming optimization algorithm to optimize the charging schedules in the electrified networks. We show the significant benefits of optimizing the charging schedules from the perspective of the public transit network and electricity grid operators. 

Second, we investigate how public transit bus networks can offer more convenient service level to passengers. We propose dynamic transit bus networks, which plan routes and schedules according to the actual observed demand and passengers' preferences. We develop a heuristic algorithm to solve the complex underlying mathematical optimization problem efficiently. Our results show an essential improvement in the service level provided to passengers and ridership of transit bus networks in the dynamic system compared to the conventional static one.