Decision Support for Bus Operations in a Mass Transit System

A computerized system has been developed for assigning, parking, and dispatching buses so that each operator in the St. Louis metropolitan transit system generally drives the same bus each day. Combinations of optimizing routines, mathematical heuristics, decision rules from experienced personnel, and human intervention are used to manage the bus operations efficiently. This paper describes the tools created for this task and documents significant improvements in maintenance that occurred after the system became operational.