Citation

Ceder A. Transp. Res. Rec. 1995; 1503: 34-38.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This work addressed the problem of how to allocate vehicles efficiently for carrying out all of the trips in a given transit timetable, in which each vehicle is assigned a chain of trips, some of which may be deadhead (empty) trips. The methodology presented takes into account the association between the characteristics of each trip (urban, peripheral, intercity, etc.) and its required vehicle type. The problem is based on given sets of trips and vehicle types, in which the categories are arranged in decreasing order of vehicle cost. Therefore, each trip can be carried out by its vehicle type, or by other types listed in priority order. This problem can be formularized as a cost-flow network problem with a nonpolynomial-hard complexity level. Thus, a heuristic algorithm was developed in this work on the basis of the deficit function theory. A real-life example is presented at the end of the paper to assess the methodology's effectiveness.

Language: en

Keywords

Buses; Costs; Algorithms; Scheduling; Heuristic methods; Optimization; Bus transportation