Analysis of Public Transport System Efficiency Based on Multi-layer Network

Abstract

Public transportation plays a pivotal part in urban traffic systems, where enhancing the efficiency of public transport is one of the essential strategies for solving the traffic congestion. In this paper, we propose a novel method to define the weights of edges which connected neighbor stations, by considering multi-layer structural and functional properties. To set the structural weights, a three-layer network is constructed to show the importance of links in the whole public transport system rather than a single traffic mode. Besides, the functional weight represents transport capacity of bus lines, which helps to improve the efficiency of public transport. In order to prove the practicality and reliability of our proposed model, the experiment is conducted by comparing with the traditional index. The experimental results demonstrate that our proposed model is superior to the state-of-the-art models. Moreover, we propose an optimization algorithm to improve single bus line’s efficiency without losing the performance of the whole network.