Awesome Atlanta helps Berrebi improve bus schedules

The Awesome Foundation – Atlanta will give doctoral student Simon Berrebi $1,000 later this month to support his work improving how public transit agencies schedule their bus routes.

From the foundation’s announcement Oct. 1:

As part of his research, [Berrebi] has developed a method to control buses using real-time information that could replace schedules. The idea is to send buses at high frequency and at regular headway to minimize passenger waiting time. The method consists in holding buses at time-points to space out the headways and avoiding bus bunching. Operationally, tablets in the buses tell the operators when to drive and when to stop.

“My work as a Ph.D. student and as a researcher is to find solutions to revolutionize bus transit with real-time information. I have tested the method in a computer simulation that replicated a typical high-frequency bus route and found that my method could cut passenger waiting time by half. I feel truly privileged to receive the Awesome Foundation’s award. This award will help me build a bus control system to replace schedules, and to make buses run more efficiently,” said Simon.

Berrebi works with School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Assistant Professor Kari Watkins in the Urban Transportation Information Lab. Read more about his project here and here.