Abstract:
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.
