Dealing with the Empty Vehicle Movements in Personal Rapid Transit System with Batteries Constraints in a Dynamic Context

Abstract EN

The Personal Rapid Transit is a new emergent transportation tool.

It relies on using a set of small driverless electric vehicles to transport people on demand.

Because of the specific on-demand characteristic of the Personal Rapid Transit system, many Personal Rapid Transit vehicles would move empty which results in a high level of wasted transportation capacity.

This is enhanced while using Personal Rapid Transit vehicles with limited electric battery capacity.

This paper deals with this problem in a real time context while minimizing the set of empty vehicle movements.

First, a mathematical formulation to benchmark waiting time of passengers in Personal Rapid Transit systems is proposed.

Then, a simulation model that captures the main features of the Personal Rapid Transit system is developed.

A decision support system which integrates several real time solution strategies as well as a simulation module is proposed.

Our dispatching strategies are evaluated and compared based on our simulation model.

The efficiency of our method is tested through extensive test studies.