access icon free Empty vehicles management as a method for reducing passenger waiting time in Personal Rapid Transit networks

Empty vehicles management may improve the average waiting time for vehicle delivery in the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) network. In this study, original heuristic algorithm of empty vehicle management is presented. The algorithm is tested in several benchmark PRT structures under Feniks simulation environment. The results show that significant improvements of average waiting time may be achieved just because of the multi-parameter analysis of the present network state alone rather than by the predictive use of forecasted demand. The algorithm does not use any central database of demand and location of free vehicles. Instead, it assumes the local exchange of data between stations on their state and expected vehicles. Therefore it seems well tailored to a distributed implementation.

Inspec keywords: rapid transit systems; electronic data interchange; railways; demand forecasting

Other keywords: PRT network; local data exchange; average waiting time improvement; heuristic algorithm; personal rapid transit networks; vehicle delivery; multiparameter analysis; Feniks simulation environment; demand forecasting; passenger waiting time reduction method; empty vehicles management

Subjects: Systems theory applications in transportation; Data interchange

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