Within the framework of demand responsive systems, a new transportation service is presented which integrates traditional bus transportation and on demand service. It encompasses some regularity of the former and some flexibility of the latter. Indeed, it is a hybrid system that represents a good compromise between a door-to-door, personalized service, fulfilling individual requests, and the cheap alternative of traditional public transport based on fixed line operations. This system may well address the needs of relatively low demand areas or periods where demand is concentrated at a limited number of locations which should or have to be served. In particular the peculiar mathematical structure of the problem requires innovative solution methods, even when tackling the simplest version of the problem, i.e. the single vehicle, single line case.

This research addresses the development of suitable mathematical models and the design of ad hoc algorithms for the generation of heuristic solutions.

Collaborators

Teodor Gabriel Crainic (CRT - Université de Montreal)

Fausto Errico (Dip. Matematica - Politecnico di Milano)

Maddalena Nonato (DI - Università di Ferrara)

Slides Presentation (ITS 2000 Torino)

Latest Slides Presentation (Norrköping 2004)

List of papers

1. Crainic, T. G., F. Malucelli, M. Nonato and F. Guertin. Adaptive memory programming for a class of Demand Responsive Transit Systems. in CASPT (2000) Berlin.
2. Malucelli, F., M. Nonato and S. Pallottino, Demand Adaptive Systems: some proposals on flexible transit, in Operational Research in Industry, T.A. Ciriani, et al., Editors. (1999), McMillan Press: London. p. 157-182.
3. Malucelli, F., M. Nonato and S. Pallottino. Models and Heuristic Algorithms for Low Demand Transportation Systems. in TRISTAN III (1998) Puerto Rico.
4. Crainic T. G., F. Malucelli and M. Nonato (2001). Flexible many-to-few + few-to-many = an almost personalized transit system. TRISTAN IV, São Miguel Azores Islands, 435-440.

Design and implementation of models and algorithms for school and firm transportation. In collaboration with Maddalena Nonato and Alessandra Esposito.

Consider a mass transit system in a regional area. The problem of improving the quality of the service by decreasing the total passenger waiting time is studied. A model to improve the effectiveness of the system without worsening the cost (vehicles and duties) and the passenger assignment is proposed, along with a new definition of passenger assignment to support the proposed model. Methods to compute the passenger assignment in collective transportation is also studied.

These researches have been carried out in collaboration with Paolo Carraresi, Stefano Pallottino (Dipartimento di Informatica Università di Pisa), Sang Nguyen (DIRO, Université de Montreal).

List of papers

1. Nguyen, S., S. Pallottino and F. Malucelli, A modelling framework for passenger assignment on transport network with time-tables. Transportation Science, (2000) to appear.
2. Carraresi, P., F. Malucelli and S. Pallottino, Regional mass transit assignment with resource constraints. Transportation Research B, (199) 30B(2): p. 81-98.
3. Carraresi, P., F. Malucelli and S. Pallottino, On the regional mass transit assignment problem, in Optimization in Industry 3, A. Sciomachen, Editor. (1995) Wiley: p. 19-33.