A simulation system for flexible transit services based on E-CARGO

摘要

The public transit service in a city is required and expensive. At the same time, traditional operations of such services have a lot of waste, e.g., a grand bus has only one or two riders frequently. We need to explore better operations. To assist acquiring practical methods of operations, a simulation system is an acceptable tool. This paper models the public transit services as a collaborative activity, and proposes a platform that simulates the operation of a flexible transit system based on the Role-Based Collaboration approach and its E-CARGO model. The simulation system can embed the traditional ways about vehicle routing and is verified by a case study. The case study shows that the simulation system can inform if an operation method is practical or not and is a good tool for the investigations of related methods in operating a public transit system.