Control of Pairing of Vehicles on a Public Transportation Route, Two Vehicles, One Control Point

G. F. Newell
Additional contact information
G. F. Newell: University of California, Berkeley, California

Transportation Science, 1974, vol. 8, issue 3, 248-264

Abstract: If the time required for a vehicle (particularly buses or elevators) to load passengers is an increasing function of the number of passengers loaded, then, on a route served by more than one vehicle, the vehicles tend to form pairs. If a vehicle runs behind (ahead of) schedule, it typically will pick up more (less) passengers and get even further behind (ahead of) schedule. The following is concerned with a shuttle type of route having just two vehicles and serving passengers who arrive at a constant rate. There is one control point at which vehicles can be intentionally delayed. The object is to devise a strategy of control that will minimize the average waiting time of the passengers. The strategy must correct for random fluctuations in trip time so that the headways will not become sufficiently unequal as to initiate effects of pairing. An approximate solution of the optimization problem suggests that the optimal control involves sufficiently tight control that the pairing effect has little influence on the waiting times.

Date: 1974
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/trsc.8.3.248 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:8:y:1974:i:3:p:248-264

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Transportation Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().