High Coverage Point-to-Point Transit: A study of Multiple-hub Path-Based Vehicle Routing

摘要

This study focuses on the associated optimization and simulation modeling for a design of alternativetransportation, the High Coverage Point-to-Point Transit (HCPPT), which involves a sufficient number ofdeployed small vehicles with advanced information supply schemes. In this paper, we identify theinefficiency of the existing heuristic rules for vehicle routing and propose a new optimization approachfor HCPPT solution. A path-based model for routing through multiple hubs as opposed to a single pair ofhubs is formulated to improve the HCPPT operational schemes. This study also develops a simulationframework for the application of the proposed algorithm. To illustrate the system and computationalperformances of the proposed model, simulations are conducted with different sets of scenarios andmodel parameters. The path-based model shows reasonable performances over the various demandspatterns in terms of level-of-service and ride time index. It is also shown that with the use of constraint-driven schemes and model parameters the scale of the problem is reduced. The computational times areshown to be very small, demonstrating the viability in real-time operations.