Imagine a public transport system not restricted by set timetables and indirect routes. You register your journey on an Internet system which finds the best option for your trip and books or schedules the transport you need. Today you might travel with others in a taxi. Tomorrow, a bus might be re-routed to pick you up on its way to town.

Such systems, employing multiple modes of transport, working together in a co-ordinated way, are a real possibility for the future. CSIRO mathematicians have created tools to make it possible to plan such a system, and run it as efficiently as possible.

To see how feasible systems of this type are, CSIRO scientists simulate them on computers. This way, they can test different possible systems and find the best ways to satisfy both commuters and transport operators. Already, they’ve used this for planning on the Gold Coast.

[GOLD COAST: This is a computer simulation of a potential demand-responsive public transport system. The lines show two bus routes that the drivers will take at this particular time. The circles are where passengers will be picked up or dropped off. Since the system is demand-responsive, these bus routes are not fixed, but have been worked out by the computer as the most efficient way to transport all the passengers travelling at that particular time.]

They have also developed mathematical techniques to automatically find the best transport option for a given journey from all the possible combinations of scheduled train and bus services and on-demand vehicles like taxis and smaller buses. This process is called optimisation. Individual preferences and constraints, like how quickly you need to get somewhere and how much you want to spend, can be met by representing each as a mathematical equation in the optimisation process.

Optimisation is also used for the system as a whole, to make the best use of vehicles so that all passengers are transported for the least amount of fuel and lowest cost. Clever scheduling techniques allow services to be dynamically re-scheduled to meet demand. All that adds up to a future public transport system that’s quicker, more flexible and more convenient. A system that more people will choose to use. And that means less pollution and much less congestion.

There are several pages on the CSIRO website outlining transport-related projects, including: