Abstract

Part 5: Modelling and Optimization; International audience; In this paper, we address the problem of determining the optimal fleet size for Personal Rapid Transit system (PRT). In our problem, we consider electric battery and distance constraints which are found in real world application of the PRT system. To tackle this problem, we propose two valid mathematical formulations that are able to find optimal fleet size. Extensive computational experiments show that the edge based formulation performs impressively well, in terms of solution quality and computational time in comparison to the node based formulation. Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Abstract

Part 5: Modelling and Optimization; International audience; Nowadays, different changes from the economical, societal and environmental contexts are happen in cities. In fact, cities are generally the best place to endorse and enhance various experience in order to improve the quality of life of its citizens. In this context, the new vision of Smart Mobility fill into this context. The concept of Smart Mobility as a means to enhance the mobility experience of citizen has been gaining increasing importance in the agendas of cities stakeholder. It represents the best balance the economic, environmental and societal aspect of current transportation tools. The implementation of the smart mobility concept in the case of Tunis city is the subject matter of the paper. In fact, we focus on considering the Personal Rapid Transit system as an effective and efficient tool to bring smart mobility experience to Tunis city. This paper also presents and study the viability of implementing PRT in our specific context. An extensive simulation and economic feasibility study is conducted to validate our proposal. Computational results prove the different advantages of our proposal in the studied context. Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Abstract

SUMMARY This article describes a static assignment method for a class of emerging public transport systems called personal rapid transit (PRT). PRT is a fully automated public transportation system where small-size vehicles run on exclusive guideways. Because of its automated, on-demand service, PRT must be able to automatically reroute empty vehicles after use to supply stations with waiting passengers. Consequently, any PRT traffic assignment must take into account the flow of empty vehicles as well as the flow of vehicles with passengers. The PRT assignment methods described in this work are based on linear programming models. One of the assignment methods has been applied to a realistic PRT network, and the statically assigned flows have been compared with averaged link flows produced by a PRT microsimulation. It is shown that the proposed static assignment method is not only useful to identify capacity bottlenecks of the planned PRT network but also serves to benchmark the microsimulator's vehicle management algorithms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.