A Paradigm Shift on Scheduling and Operating High-Frequency Services | OPTALive Webinar by CIMA+

Tuesday | October 20, 2026 | 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Meeting Location: Webinar

Session Type: Lecture

Speaker:  Denis Matarangas, Director & Associate Partner, CIMA+

Topic Description

Despite decades of investment in planning tools and operational technologies, transit agencies continue to struggle with a familiar problem: high-frequency routes that are unreliable, overcrowded, and prone to bus bunching. The root cause is often not a lack of resources, but the way those resources are planned and managed. Service levels, vehicle assignments, and operator schedules are typically locked in months in advance, while passenger demand and operating conditions change every day.

This presentation explores how transit agencies can move beyond traditional schedule-based operations by combining dynamic resource determination with headway-based management (with respect to operators CBA). Rather than deploying the same service every day, agencies can leverage historical and predictive data to adapt vehicle and operator requirements to anticipated conditions. At the same time, headway-based management shifts the operational objective from schedule adherence to maintaining consistent spacing between vehicles, improving reliability for passengers while reducing pressure on operators.

The session will demonstrate how simulation models can be used to evaluate these strategies before deployment, quantify expected benefits, and support organizational change. Rather than relying on assumptions, transit agencies can use simulation to identify the operating strategies that produce the greatest value for riders, operators, and management while making the most effective use of available resources. Participants will gain practical insights into how these approaches can reduce bus bunching, shorten passenger wait times, improve resource utilization, and increase service reliability, ultimately enabling agencies to deliver better service with the resources they already have.

Learning Objectives

• Objective 1: Identify the root causes of unreliability and bus bunching on high-frequency transit routes, and explain the limitations of traditional schedule-based operations.
• Objective 2: Explain how dynamic resource determination and headway-based management can improve service reliability, passenger experience, and resource utilization while respecting operator collective bargaining agreements.
• Objective 3: Evaluate how simulation models can be used to test operating strategies, quantify expected benefits, and support implementation and organizational change before deployment.

Webinar login details will be emailed once you register.