Research Article Reliability Analysis of Bus Timetabling Strategy during the COVID-19 Epidemic: A Case Study of Yixing, China Liangpeng Gao , 1 Yue Zheng , 2 Yanjie Ji , 3 Chenghong Fu , 1 and Lihai Zhang 4 1 Institute of Transportation, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou, Fujian, China 2 School of Modern Posts and Institute of Modern Posts, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China 3 School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China 4 Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, VIC, Australia CorrespondenceshouldbeaddressedtoYueZheng;zhengyue_seu@163.com Received 13 December 2020; Revised 15 January 2021; Accepted 22 January 2021; Published 15 February 2021 AcademicEditor:TingsongWang Copyright © 2021 Liangpeng Gao et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Howtomeetthedailydemandforresidenttransportwhilelimitingthetransmissionofinfectiousdiseasesisaproblemofsocial responsibilityofurbantransportsystemsduringmajorpublichealthemergencies.Consideringthenovelcoronaviruspneumonia epidemic(COVID-19),abustimetablesystembasedonthe“ifearly,wait,andiflate,leavesoon”strategyisproposed.Basedon publictransportvehicleconstraintsinthissystem,theconceptofreliabilityisintroducedtoevaluatepublictransporttimetable systems,andamodelbasedonaneventtreeisbuilttocalculatethefailurerateofurbanbustimetables.en,thepublictransport situationinYixingcityisusedasanexampletoperformconfirmatoryanalysis,andthefluctuationsinthereliabilityofthebus timetableduringthenovelcoronaviruspneumoniaepidemicarediscussed.eresearchresultsshowthatthemethodproposedin thispapercanobtaintheoverallfailurerateofurbanbustimetablebytraversingthecalculationofeachround-tripintervaland achieveanaccurateevaluationofthereliabilityofbustimetables.Duringtheearly,middle,andmorerecentstagesoftheCOVID- 19 outbreak, the failure rate of bus timetables in Yixing city initially decreased and then increased. In the early stage of the outbreak,thefailurerateoftheYixingbustimetablewas7.8142.However,thefailureratedecreasedto4.3306and5.0160inthe middleandlatestagesoftheepidemic,respectively.Inotherwords,thefailurerateofthepublictransportnetworkinthemiddle and late stages decreased by 44.58% and 35.81%, respectively, compared with that in the early stage. us, during major health emergencies,suchasthenovelcoronaviruspneumoniaoutbreak,thereliabilityoftheurbanbustimetablesystemcanbeimproved byatleast35%,andcross-infectionatbusstationscanbeprevented.eresearchresultsverifythefeasibilityandreliabilityofthe implementation of bus timetabling strategies during major health emergencies. 1. Introduction Major epidemics involving infectious diseases are serious publichealtheventsthatcanleadtothespreadofinfection sourcesacrossregionsandbordersandposeathreattothe safetyofallhumanbeings[1,2].Takingeffectivemeasuresto prevent, control, and eliminate the outbreak of major in- fectious diseases can not only reduce the degree of social harm caused and ensure the safety of individuals and property but also help maintain regional public order and promote harmonious social communication. Since novel coronavirus pneumonia emerged in late December 2019, the COVID-19 epidemic has spread to manycountriesandregionsaroundtheworldandhashada critical impact on individuals’ daily life, security stability, and socioeconomic status. rough early June 2020, the COVID-19 disease, which has been reported in 188 coun- tries/regions,hadledto420,000deaths,andover7.5million Hindawi Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society Volume 2021, Article ID 6688236, 14 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6688236