DESIGN OF SCHOOL BUS ROUTES BY COMPUTER

A practical method for generating school bus routes and schedules on a digital computer has been developed. Routing is accomplished by a two step procedure. First, the shortest route a bus of infinite capacity traverses in order to visit all of the stops is determined. This route, the solution of the traveling-salesman problem associated with the set of bus stops, is obtained by an efficient heuristic procedure which yields near-optimal solutions to problems of a realistic size. This single route is then partitioned to provide individual bus routes and schedules which satisfy bus capacity, bus loading policy, and passenger riding time constraints. © 1969.