In this article, we study the school bus routing and scheduling problem with transfers arising in the field of nonperiodic public transportation systems. It deals with the transportation of pupils from home to their school in the morning taking the possibility that pupils may change buses into account. Allowing transfers has several consequences. On the one hand, it allows more flexibility in the bus network structure and can, therefore, help to reduce operating costs. On the other hand, transfers have an impact on the service level: the perceived service quality is lower due to the existence of transfers; however, at the same time, user ride times may be reduced and, thus, transfers may also have a positive impact on service quality. The main objective is the minimization of the total operating costs. We develop a heuristic solution framework to solve this problem and compare it with two solution concepts that do not consider transfers. The impact of transfers on the service level in terms of time loss (or user ride time) and the number of transfers is analyzed. Our results show that allowing transfers reduces total operating costs significantly while average and maximum user ride times are comparable to solutions without transfers. (authors' abstract)

<p>School bus routing and scheduling are among the major problems because school bus transportation needs to be safe, reliable and efficient. Hence, the research question for this thesis is to answer how to transport students in the safest, most economical and convenient manner. The objective of this thesis is to create a GIS based school transport management system which helps in bus-stop allocation, design fastest and safest bus routes with AVL facility. This thesis also aims to investigate how a school transportation management system may improve the transportation security. The result from this study has helped to develop a school bus routing and scheduling prototype model for Sujatha High School, Hyderabad. This prototype model will help the school transportation management to design shortest and fastest school bus routes and they can also allocate bus stops, which will help them in selecting the pick-up stops for the students and staff, according to their concentration in the areas. This thesis has also, through literature study, investigated how a school transport management system can improve the transportation security. For the time being, there is a general belief that ICT contributes to improving the security, although a quantification of such improvements are lacking. The user interface application has been developed by using VBA and ArcGIS 9.1 Network Analyst provided by Environmental Science Research Institute and it has been evaluated by GIS users.</p>

During an emergency evacuation, most people will use their vehicles to evacuate. However, there is a group of people who do not have access to reliable transportation or for some reason cannot drive, even if they have their own automobiles - the carless. There are different groups of carless (disabled, medically homebound, poor or immigrant populations, etc.) who require different forms of transportation assistance during an emergency evacuation. In this study we focus on those carless who are physically intact and able to walk to a set of designated locations for transportation during an emergency, and we propose using public transit and school buses to evacuate this carless group. A model has been developed to accommodate the use of public transit and school buses to efficiently and effectively evacuate the carless. The model has two parts. Part 1 is a location problem which aims at congregating the carless at some specific locations called evacuation sites inside the affected area. To achieve this goal, the affected area is partitioned into zones and this congregating of the carless has been formulated as a Single Source Capacitated Facility Location Problem. Changes in the demand of the carless in zones over different periods of a day and over different days of the week have been considered and included in the model. A walking time constraint is explicitly considered in the model. A heuristic developed by Klincewicz and Luss (1986) has been used to solve this location model.Part 2 is a routing problem which aims at obtaining itineraries of buses to pick up the carless at evacuation sites and transport them to safe locations outside the affected area, such that the total number of carless evacuated with the given time limit is maximized. A Tabu search heuristic has been developed for solving the routing problem. Computational results show that the Tabu search heuristic efficiently and effectively solves the routing problem; in particular, the initial heuristic produces a high quality initial solution in very short time. This study has also made slight contribution to the development of the Tabu search technique.

School bus routing and scheduling are among the major problems because school bus transportation needs to be safe, reliable and efficient. Hence, the research question for this thesis is to answer how to transport students in the safest, most economical and convenient manner. The objective of this thesis is to create a GIS based school transport management system which helps in bus-stop allocation, design fastest and safest bus routes with AVL facility. This thesis also aims to investigate how a school transportation management system may improve the transportation security. The result from this study has helped to develop a school bus routing and scheduling prototype model for Sujatha High School, Hyderabad. This prototype model will help the school transportation management to design shortest and fastest school bus routes and they can also allocate bus stops, which will help them in selecting the pick-up stops for the students and staff, according to their concentration in the areas. This thesis has also, through literature study, investigated how a school transport management system can improve the transportation security. For the time being, there is a general belief that ICT contributes to improving the security, although a quantification of such improvements are lacking. The user interface application has been developed by using VBA and ArcGIS 9.1 Network Analyst provided by Environmental Science Research Institute and it has been evaluated by GIS users.

School districts providing busing services for students who live too far to walk to school. In many districts a fleet of school buses is used in sequence to transport high school students, then middle school students, and then elementary school students. The result is that high school classes must start much earlier in the morning than the elementary school, and buses may traverse similar routes three times each morning and afternoon. In light of recent research on the benefits of later high school start times and the need to control transportation costs, school districts are seeking efficient school bus routing plans that meet student needs at low cost. This study uses 2018 data for schools in Northampton, Massachusetts, to identify the potential to achieve two objectives: 1) start the high school classes as late as possible in the day, and 2) minimize the cost of busing. The proposed procedure makes use of existing school bus data to optimize bus routes, which can be applicable for smaller cities. A revised routing plan that mixes high school and middle school students on the same buses allows the high school to start 30 minutes later while reducing total school bus operations.

abstract: Mobile healthy food retailers are a novel alleviation technique to address disparities in access to urban produce stores in food desert communities. Such retailers, which tend to exclusively stock produce items, have become significantly more popular in the past decade, but many are unable to achieve economic sustainability. Therefore, when local and federal grants and scholarships are no longer available for a mobile food retailer, they must stop operating which poses serious health risks to consumers who rely on their services. To address these issues, a framework was established in this dissertation to aid mobile food retailers with reaching economic sustainability by addressing two key operational decisions. The first decision was the stocked product mix of the mobile retailer. In this problem, it was assumed that mobile retailers want to balance the health, consumer cost, and retailer profitability of their product mix. The second investigated decision was the scheduling and routing plan of the mobile retailer. In this problem, it was assumed that mobile retailers operate similarly to traditional distribution vehicles with the exception that their customers are willing to travel between service locations so long as they are in close proximity. For each of these problems, multiple formulations were developed which address many of the nuances for most existing mobile food retailers. For each problem, a combination of exact and heuristic solution procedures were developed with many utilizing software independent methodologies as it was assumed that mobile retailers would not have access to advanced computational software. Extensive computational tests were performed on these algorithm with the findings demonstrating the advantages of the developed procedures over other algorithms and commercial software. The applicability of these techniques to mobile food retailers was demonstrated through a case study on a local Phoenix, AZ mobile retailer. Both the product mix and routing of the retailer were evaluated using the developed tools under a variety of conditions and assumptions. The results from this study clearly demonstrate that improved decision making can result in improved profits and longitudinal sustainability for the Phoenix mobile food retailer and similar entities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Industrial Engineering 2016

[pt] O transporte escolar é fundamental para garantir o acesso e permanência dos alunos nas escolas públicas, principalmente nas áreas rurais, onde os estudantes estão localizados em uma grande área com baixa densidade e as estradas encontram-se em situações precárias. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo aplicar a metaheurística Iterated Local Search para o roteamento de 13.664 alunos da zona rural do estado do Rio de Janeiro. Para isso, considerouse o problema de roteamento de veículo escolares, do inglês School Bus Routing Problem (SBRP), com frota heterogênea e escola única, com o objetivo de minimizar o custo total considerando as restrições de capacidade dos veículos e distância máxima de percurso. Para aplicação do método, foram considerados os dados fornecidos pela Secretaria de Estado de Educação do Rio de Janeiro (SEEDUC-RJ). Os resultados são apresentados em dois cenários, o primeiro considera os dados de 79 rotas utilizadas pela SEEDUC-RJ para comparação dos resultados obtidos com o ILS. O método mostrou uma redução de 40,5 por cento no custo médio das rotas e 46 or cento na quilometragem média por aluno. O segundo cenário considera o roteamento da totalidade dos alunos, que foram divididos em 506 instâncias considerando escola e turno. A maior instância roteada possui 534 alunos. Os resultados consolidados por município são apresentados e mostram a concentração de municípios com maior custo médio por rota no noroeste fluminense. A implementação das rotas propostas pode trazer economia significativa com as despesas relacionadas ao transporte escolar rural, além de indicar um aumento no nível de serviço para os estudantes, com redução da quilometragem média por aluno. / [en] School transport is essential to ensure access and permanence of students in public schools, especially in rural areas, where students are located in a large area with low density and roads are in precarious conditions. This work aims to apply the Iterated Local Search metaheuristic to route 13.664 rural students in the state of Rio de Janeiro. For this, we considered the School Bus Routing Problem (SBRP), with heterogeneous fleet and single school, in order to minimize the total cost considering the vehicles capacity constraints and maximum travel distance. To apply the method, the data provided by Secretaria de Estado de Educação do Rio de Janeiro (SEEDUCRJ) were considered. The results are presented in two scenarios, the first considers data from 79 routes used by SEEDUC-RJ to compare the results obtained with the ILS. The method showed a reduction of 40.5 percent in the average cost of routes and 46 percent in the average mileage per student. The second scenario considers the routing of all students, who were divided into 506 instances considering school and shift. The largest routed instance has 534 students. The results consolidated by municipality are presented and show the concentration of municipalities with the highest average cost per route in northwestern Rio de Janeiro. The implementation of the proposed routes can bring significant savings with expenses related to rural school transport, in addition to indicating an increase in the level of service for students, with a reduction in the average mileage per student.