Scenic areas in an archipelago context are often accessed with shuttle vehicles to transport tourists between different scenic spots. Vehicle routing and schedule planning could be challenging when route disruptions are considered frequent and fragile areas are protected and conserved. Transport provisions also affect the number, sequence and patterns of visited spots for each tourist, which in turn may not only impact the revenue of the scenic area but also on visitor satisfaction. This paper develops a mixed-integer programming model for this optimisation problem at scenic areas by considering two common ticketing policies: ‘all-inclusive policy’ and the ‘two-part tariff policy’. Experimental results based on the case study of Qiandaohu scenic area in China demonstrate that our method can obtain high-quality solutions for real-sized problems where some routes are disrupted. It is found that ticketing policies may have different impacts on shuttle vehicle planning. Under the all-inclusive policy, the shuttle vehicle planning maximises the total profit. Under the two-part tariff policy, however, the plan needs to maximise the profit to strike a balance between the operational cost and the number of spots visited by tourists. Our study may shed light on the effectiveness of shuttle vehicle planning and ticketing policy selection.
