Finding delay-resistant line concepts using a game-theoretic approach

We present a game-theoretic model for the line planning problem in public transportation, in which each line acts as player. Each player aims to minimize its own delay, which is dependent on the traffic load along its edges. We show that there exists a line plan at equilibrium, which minimizes the probability of delays of the transportation system. This result is achieved by showing that a potential function exists. Numerical results using close-to-real world data in the <Literal>LinTim</Literal> framework clearly show that our method indeed produces delay-resistant line concepts. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013