Center for Spatial Studies

Public transportation in cities is less popular than the private car due to lower personal flexibility, perceived comfort or the unavailability of infrastructure. The latter one is an issue in Augsburg with regard to outer districts since the existing star-shaped network layout requires a route through the inner city. A recent proposal called "Verkehr4.0" aims to extend the layout of the existing infrastructure by adding new express bus lines to connect outer city districts. This research paper investigates the direct traffic flow between the outer districts Stadtbergen and Göggingen in contrast to the existing flow via the central hub "Königsplatz". We implement an agent-based simulation comparing waiting times, travel times and total times spent on trips in the two scenarios. Furthermore, we model a measure dubbed "happiness" of the people as well as their willingness to change their mode of transport. The preliminary results of our simulation show that waiting time for public transport users decreases, while total time, travel time and happiness reveal no statistical difference through the introduction of an express bus line.