In this paper, an original heuristic algorithm of empty vehicles managementin personal rapid transit network is presented. The algorithm is used for thedelivery of empty vehicles for waiting passengers, for balancing thedistribution of empty vehicles within the network, and for providing an emptyspace for vehicles approaching a station. Each of these tasks involves adecision on the trip that has to be done by a selected empty vehicle from itsactual location to some determined destination. The decisions are based on amulti-parameter function involving a set of factors and thresholds. Animportant feature of the algorithm is that it does not use any central databaseof passenger input (demand) and locations of free vehicles. Instead, it isbased on the local exchange of data between stations: on their states and onthe vehicles they expect. Therefore, it seems well-tailored for a distributedimplementation. The algorithm is uniform, meaning that the same basic procedureis used for multiple tasks using a task-specific set of parameters.
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