In this research a heuristic algorithm is developed for searching and identifying preferred actions as applied to the bus route design problem. The search routine evaluates each subsequent segment added to the route in the context of the value of that segment and also the value of future decisions and opportunities for subsequent segments. The total overall maximum accessibility of the system is calculated using a minimum path network between each node pair and adding the accessibility of all route segments. This is equivalent to assuming that there was a direct shortest path route between every two destinations in the network. The quality of the designed network is obtained by comparing the share of the total benefits obtained from the heuristic with the share of the costs incurred with respect to a minimum path network. Several test cases and network scenarios are studied to evaluate the analytical tool developed. In addition, different performance measures are used to identify the connecting routes that increase the accessibility of the system.

Public transportation contributes to sustainable transportation in urban areas. Unfortunately, in some cases public transit systems have been underperforming. Over the years, factors such as urban sprawl and the increase in private vehicle ownership have led to challenges for public transportation providers. The lack of investment in transit infrastructure has resulted in transit agencies being under resourced which further limit the agencies’ ability to respond. Realizing the need to change and move towards a more sustainable and balanced transportation system, governments have begun to invest more and more in transportation infrastructure projects. In order to encourage public transportation, focus has shifted to improving the quality of transit service being provided. There are many ways in which transit improvements can be made. The problem that describes the design of a public transportation network is referred to as the transit network design problem (TNDP). Much of the existing literature that addresses the TNDP describes methods that are rigorous and complex and have limited application in practice. Given the emergence of geographic information systems (GIS), there exists new opportunities to address the TNDP. This thesis presents a customized GIS tool that assists transit network design. The approach utilizes GIS to identify desire lines or major travel demand corridors from which trunk transit routes are proposed and evaluated. The GIS tool is built using VBA scripting in ArcMap 9.3 part of ESRI’s general ArcGIS suite but the underlying GIS functionality needed by the tool is not limited to ESRI software. The tool offers a proven methodology for use within transit network design and evaluation at a level of resource requirement that is consistent with most transit agencies. The tool has been customized to minimize the need for GIS training and to maximize its adaptability for application in multiple cities. The analyst applying the tools must have substantial knowledge of local conditions. The tool is applied to the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, at the TAZ (traffic analysis zone) level using population and employment data. A street network with corresponding posted speeds on each link and the location of signalized intersections were also used in the analysis. The results of the analysis depicted major flows throughout Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. Unique flows from students, major employers and an analysis of average income levels also provide input into the major demand corridors. From these results seven high order transit routes were designed to accommodate the major demand corridors. From the results it was found that GIS can be used to depict major demand corridors and inform transit network design. GIS is an excellent tool that can display complex information and visually identify spatial patterns. Further research includes the development of a model that evaluates network alternatives or the development of quantitative methods by which limits on aggregation can be automated.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 92 pages. / Thesis (M.S.I.E.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: In this research a heuristic algorithm is developed for searching and identifying preferred actions as applied to the bus route design problem. The search routine evaluates each subsequent segment added to the route in the context of the value of that segment and also the value of future decisions and opportunities for subsequent segments. The total overall maximum accessibility of the system is calculated using a minimum path network between each node pair and adding the accessibility of all route segments. This is equivalent to assuming that there was a direct shortest path route between every two destinations in the network. The quality of the designed network is obtained by comparing the share of the total benefits obtained from the heuristic with the share of the costs incurred with respect to a minimum path network. Several test cases and network scenarios are studied to evaluate the analytical tool developed. / ABSTRACT: In addition, different performance measures are used to identify the connecting routes that increase the accessibility of the system. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Commuter rail systems, operating on unused or under-used railroad rights-of-way, are being introduced into many urban transportation systems. Since locations of available rail rights-of-way were typically chosen long ago to serve the needs of rail freight customers, these locations are not optimal for commuter rail users. The majority of commuter rail users do not live or work within walking distance of potential commuter rail stations, so provision of quick, convenient access to and from stations is a critical part of overall commuter decisions to use commuter rail. Minimizing access time to rail stations and final destinations is crucial if commuter rail is to be a viable option for commuters. Well-designed feeder routes or circulator systems are regarded as potential solutions to provide train station to ultimate destination access. Transit planning for main line or feeder routes relies upon static demand estimates describing a typical day. Daily and peak-hour demands change in response to the state of the transport system, as influenced by weather, incidents, holiday schedules and many other factors. Recent marketing successes of “smart phones” might provide an innovative means of obtaining real time data that could be used to identify optimal paths and stop locations for commuter rail circulator systems. Such advanced technology could allow commuter rail users to provide real-time final destination information that would enable real time optimization of feeder routes. This dissertation focuses on real time optimization of the Commuter Rail Circulator Route Network Design Problem (CRCNDP). The route configuration of the circulator system – where to stop and the route among the stops – is determined on a real-time basis by employing adaptive Tabu Search to timely solve an MIP problem with an objective to minimize total cost incurred to both transit users and transit operators. Numerical experiments are executed to find the threshold for the minimum fraction of travelers that would need to report their destinations via smart phone to guarantee the practical value of optimization based on real-time collected demand against a base case defined as the average performance of all possible routes. The adaptive Tabu Search Algorithm is also applied to three real-size networks abstracted from the Martin Luther King (MLK) station of the new MetroRail system in Austin, Texas. / text

Public transportation contributes to sustainable transportation in urban areas. Unfortunately, in some cases public transit systems have been underperforming. Over the years, factors such as urban sprawl and the increase in private vehicle ownership have led to challenges for public transportation providers. The lack of investment in transit infrastructure has resulted in transit agencies being under resourced which further limit the agencies’ ability to respond. Realizing the need to change and move towards a more sustainable and balanced transportation system, governments have begun to invest more and more in transportation infrastructure projects. In order to encourage public transportation, focus has shifted to improving the quality of transit service being provided. There are many ways in which transit improvements can be made. The problem that describes the design of a public transportation network is referred to as the transit network design problem (TNDP). Much of the existing literature that addresses the TNDP describes methods that are rigorous and complex and have limited application in practice. Given the emergence of geographic information systems (GIS), there exists new opportunities to address the TNDP. This thesis presents a customized GIS tool that assists transit network design. The approach utilizes GIS to identify desire lines or major travel demand corridors from which trunk transit routes are proposed and evaluated. The GIS tool is built using VBA scripting in ArcMap 9.3 part of ESRI’s general ArcGIS suite but the underlying GIS functionality needed by the tool is not limited to ESRI software. The tool offers a proven methodology for use within transit network design and evaluation at a level of resource requirement that is consistent with most transit agencies. The tool has been customized to minimize the need for GIS training and to maximize its adaptability for application in multiple cities. The analyst applying the tools must have substantial knowledge of local conditions. The tool is applied to the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, at the TAZ (traffic analysis zone) level using population and employment data. A street network with corresponding posted speeds on each link and the location of signalized intersections were also used in the analysis. The results of the analysis depicted major flows throughout Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. Unique flows from students, major employers and an analysis of average income levels also provide input into the major demand corridors. From these results seven high order transit routes were designed to accommodate the major demand corridors. From the results it was found that GIS can be used to depict major demand corridors and inform transit network design. GIS is an excellent tool that can display complex information and visually identify spatial patterns. Further research includes the development of a model that evaluates network alternatives or the development of quantitative methods by which limits on aggregation can be automated.

The presented thesis is focused on a set of problems related to managerial decision-making concerning networks (particularly transportation networks), respectively - if we put it more precisely - the thesis focuses on the support of this decision-making by means of quantitative methods. A set of problems related to nets and decision-making concerning their individual parts or elements represents a very complex sphere which has been a subject of research for a number of decades. Out of this sphere, the thesis formulates and elaborates in great detail two problems, which - from the point of view of their practical significance - are important for the decision-making of managers of carriers, or the public sphere, and which have not been published in this form yet. The main point is the problem of how to find a subnet with a limited prolongation of routes between important pairs of vertices. Another problem is a design of a bus route in an area with a low demand. For each of these problems, the thesis offers an exact combinatorial solution method, furthermore a method based on integer linear programming, and - last but not least - also, of course, heuristic methods of solution. All these methods have been tested on a set of networks, which has been created for this purpose in a pseudo-random way in the frame of this thesis. The testing has been focused primarily on the comparison of the results provided by heuristic methods, which are of great importance - with regard to a great computational difficulty of exact methods - for feasible tasks on a larger scale. The tests have proved that the proposed heuristic methods are practically applicable and show results whicheven represent the optimal solution in a number of cases, or are only slightly distant from the optimal solution.

El presente trabajo manifiesta la situación del sector transporte donde se reconoce que las empresas de este sector contribuyen a una participación importante del PBI. Sin embargo, gran parte de estas empresas no cumplen al 100% las expectativas que tienen los clientes sobre el nivel de servicio esperado, afectando la competitividad de estas. El presente proyecto pretende abordar la problemática, la cual se centra en las entregas fuera de tiempo de la mercadería de los clientes, la cual origina que el servicio no sea aceptable. Dicha problemática engloba principalmente los siguientes procesos: recepción y almacenamiento, programación y despacho y seguimiento y entrega. Como solución, se propone una planificación de rutas de los puntos de entrega, y mejorar los procesos en el área operativa de la empresa, basándose en la metodología BPM. Para validar el proyecto, se realizará una simulación, la cual imitará el funcionamiento del sistema del área de operaciones de la empresa enfocada en los tres procesos ya mencionados. / This project shows the situation of the transport sector where is acknowledged that the companies in this specific sector have an important contribution of the GDP. However, a large part of these companies does not accomplish the 100% of the customer’s expectations according to the level of service estimated, affecting their competitiveness. This project aims to address the problem, which it is focused on the deliveries out of time of the customer’s merchandise, that causes the service to be unacceptable. This problem involves the processes of reception & storage, scheduling & dispatch, and monitoring & delivery. As a solution, the project proposes a route planning of the company's delivery points, and an improvement of the process in the operational area of the company, based on the BPM methodology. To validate the project, a simulation will be executed, which will imitate the operations of the company’s operations area, focused on the three processes already mentioned / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional