BRT network design for transit cost reduction in Cape Town, South Africa

Car dependency in Cape Town, South Africa, like in many modern cities is high but comes at a high cost. One of these is significant network congestion, especially during peak commuting periods. A strategy adopted by the City’s transport development authority to alleviate this situation is the phased development of an integrated public transport network. A bus rapid transit service known as the MyCiTi BRT is proposed to be the backbone of the integrated network. However, an investigation of the existing service reveals a pattern of low ridership and high operating costs which is not economically sustainability. The main objective of this work is therefore to propose solutions to improve the existing service particularly in terms of increasing ridership and reducing operational cost. To achieve this, a network design approach known as simulation-based optimisation that combines simulation with optimisation algorithms is proposed. The results are compared with the baseline MyCiTi network. The outcome shows that the proposed methods are capable of improving the MyCiTi network and thereby its service.