Development of an Algorithm for Bus Routing and Tracking for an Educational Institution: A Case Study
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CASE STUDY
Development of an Algorithm for Bus Routing and Tracking for an Educational Institution: A Case Study Premletha Mohandas1 • Manju Vasudevan Saraswathy1
•
Anu Plavara Alex1
Received: 7 July 2020 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 The Institution of Engineers (India) 2020
Abstract The demand for an institution bus service varies every year, and it affects the efficiency if the service remains static. This necessitates the need to develop a procedure to identify optimum bus stops and routes to incorporate the annual variation in demand. This study was aimed to develop an algorithm for the reallocation of bus stops and routes for an institutional bus service considering the annual demand variation. The algorithm developed in the study identifies the optimum bus stops and routes to cater to the demand in a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform. The students are assigned to the nearest bus stop and the optimum routes are developed by ensuring equity. The location data of buses in real time will aid the traveller to reduce their waiting time. The developed algorithm was validated and tested with field data and results provided routing with better level of service and equity. A WebGIS based user interface was also created in the study for providing the real time location details of the requested bus to the user. The open servers like GeoServer and PostgreSQL were used for the creation of layers in the user interface, and the webpage was created with Java script and PHP language. Keywords Institution bus routing Algorithm webGIS Tracking Network analyst
& Anu Plavara Alex [email protected] 1
College of Engineering Trivandrum, Kerala 695 016, India
Introduction Institution bus routing finds out the optimal solution for bus routes by which equity is ensured in serving the students. Institute bus routing problem has mainly two stages— routing and scheduling. Routing stage includes two parts, assigning bus stop to each student and aggregating individual stop to finalise routes. Scheduling stage assigns buses to particular routes. Every year students join and leave the institutional bus service. This may alter the demand from each stop and thereby affect the efficiency of service. Hence, reallocation of stops and routes is required every year based on the demand, which is a tedious task. Nowadays, Geographic Information System (GIS) plays a very important role in routing and scheduling vehicles. It can be used to optimize the routes and stops with reduced effort, while satisfying the demand. GIS provides a powerful set of tools for solving this Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) and displaying the route system. Routing and scheduling problem deal with transportation of students and staff in the safest and most economical manner. Issues related to institution bus routing are assigning bus stops to students and routing the buses. The main objectives of this problem are to minimize the time and distance travelled by the bus. The materialization of Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled mobile devices caused
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