School Bus Routing Research Papers (original) (raw)

This paper proposes development of an android app to improve the transportation services for bus rental companies that lift Taibah University students. It intends to reduce the waiting time for bus students, thereby to stimulate sharing of updated information between the bus drivers and students. The application can run only on android devices. It would inform the students about the exact time of arrival and departure of buses on route. This proposed app would specifically be used by students and drivers of Taibah University. Any change in the scheduled movement of the buses would be updated in the software. Regular alerts would be sent in case of delays or cancelation of buses. Bus locations and routes are shown on dynamic maps using Google maps. The application is designed and tested where the users assured that the application gives the real time service and it is very helpful for them.

- by German Paredes-Belmar
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- Vehicle Routing Problems, School Bus Routing

Transportation and distribution systems are improving with an increasing pace with the help of current technological facilities and additionally, the complexity of those systems are increasing. Vehicle routing problems are difficult to solve with conventional techniques. Improving routes used in distribution systems provides significant savings in terms of time and costs. In this paper, current routes in school buses, which is a sub-branch of vehicle routing problems, are optimized using the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), which is a heuristic artificial intelligence algorithm. Developed software is used for recommending the most suitable and the shortest route illustrated on a map by taking the instantaneous student wait locations online. Results of this study suggest that the current routes can be improved by using the ACO.

Student transportation is a complex logistic issue that requires strategic planning. With the rise of the sharing economy, new, convenient and flexible transportation modes are becoming more widespread. This paper proposes a school carpooling problem as a variation of the School Bus Routing Problem (SBRP). Given a set of nodes with some number of students at each node except the school node, the problem aims to determine a carpooling routing plan that transport all students to school with a minimum number of vehicles while travelling minimum distance. There are two major differences between SBRP and the proposed problem. Firstly, while SBRP normally specifies a set of predetermined depots, the new problem seeks to determine the set of depots that can generate the optimal routing. Secondly, the vehicles in use are small-capacity vehicles used for private transportation instead of school buses. This study develops an integer programming formulation of the proposed school carpooling problem. Since the problem is NP (non-deterministic polynomial-time)-hard, it is difficult to efficiently compute optimal solutions using exact methods. Therefore, a hybrid Genetic Algorithm with local search heuristics is developed and tested with a number of randomly generated instances. The algorithm proves to be computationally efficient and solutions obtained generally can reach at least 95% optimisation rate.

- by Yangmufeng Liu
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- Operations Research, Genetic Algorithms, Mathematical Modelling, Optimization

The routing of school bus problem is a special case of the routing of vehicle problem and is also it is a real life day to day problem. It deals with transportation of students to and from their schools by considering various hindrances like highest capacity of a bus, the longest travelling time of a student in a bus, and also the timings of a school. This paper mainly focuses on optimisation of route of the school bus. The research is carried out by identifying and analysing the factors responsible for vehicle routing problem and secondary data such as student address, time, load at each stop and capacity of bus is collected from a Presidency school in Bangalore North. Finally Comparative analysis is done to compare the efficiency of all the factors such as time, distance, capacity and cost. From this research we can conclude that due to rerouting and rescheduling there is an increase in operational efficiency of 16.65% which includes total distance travelled and average cost of travelling. Thus, from this research after comparing manual method with heuristic approach using routific software developed by honey bee algorithm we found that software is more efficient than manual method.

- by IAEME Publication
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- Optimisation, Efficiency, Vehicle Routing Problem, Heuristic approach

The paper addresses the optimal bus stops allocation in the Laško municipality. The goal is to achieve a cost reduction by proper redesigning of a mandatory pupils' transportation to their schools. The proposed heuristic optimization algorithm relies on data clustering and Monte Carlo simulation. The number of bus stops should be minimal possible that still assure a maximal service area, while keeping the minimal walking distances children have to go from their homes to the nearest bus stop. The working mechanism of the proposed algorithm is explained. The latter is driven by three-dimensional GIS data to take into account as much realistic dynamic properties of terrain as possible. The results show that the proposed algorithm achieves an optimal solution with only 37 optimal bus stops covering 94.6 % of all treated pupils despite the diversity and wideness of municipality, as well as the problematic characteristics of terrains' elevation. The calculated bus stops will represent important guidelines to their actual physical implementation.

- by Dejan Dragan, Prof., PhD. and +1
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- Monte Carlo Simulation, Facility Location, Clustering, Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

The paper addresses the problem of optimal bus stop allocation. The aim is to achieve reduction of costs on account of appropriate re-design of the process of obligatory transportation of children from their homes to the corresponding schools in the Laško municipality. The proposed algorithm relies on optimization based on the Monte Carlo simulation procedure. The number of calculated bus stops is required to be minimal possible, which can still assure maximal service area within the prescribed radius, while keeping the minimal walking distances pupils have to go across from their homes to the nearest bus stop and vice versa. The main issues of the proposed algorithm are emphasised and the working mechanism is explained. The presentation of calculated results is given and comparison with some other existing algorithms is provided. The positions of the calculated bus stops are going to be used for the purpose of physical bus stops implementation in order to decrease the current trans...

Transport accounts for 26% of global carbon dioxide emissions. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, is thus becoming increasingly urgent and several approaches have been adopted to achieve this goal. Alternative sustainable technologies form one possible solution, and changes in driving styles could also contribute to a reduction in emissions. An alternative interesting approach is to reduce vehicle miles travelled. In this paper, the concept of vehicle miles travelled reduction based on a heuristic optimisation approach and geographical information system technology is introduced. The suitability of the concept was tested with the school bus routing problem. Working mechanisms of the adopted optimisation algorithms are explained. The results show that optimisation of bus stops, bus routes and driving schedules could significantly reduce the amount of vehicle miles travelled and, consequently, carbon dioxide emissions.

The paper addresses the optimal bus stops allocation in the Laško municipality. The goal is to achieve a cost reduction by proper re-designing of a mandatory pupils’ transportation to their schools. The proposed heuristic optimization algorithm relies on data clustering and Monte Carlo simulation. The number of bus stops should be minimal possible that still assure a maximal service area, while keeping the minimal walking distances children have to go from their homes to the nearest bus stop. The working mechanism of the proposed algorithm is explained. The latter is driven by three-dimensional GIS data to take into account as much realistic dynamic properties of terrain as possible. The results show that the proposed algorithm achieves an optimal solution with only 37 optimal bus stops covering 94.6 % of all treated pupils despite the diversity and wideness of municipality, as well as the problematic characteristics of terrains’ elevation. The calculated bus stops will represent im...

The paper addresses a two-stage optimization approach for the purpose of reduction of costs of obligatory transportation of children to the corresponding schools in municipality Lasko. This transportation, which is forced by government law, includes the transport of children from their homes to the corresponding primary schools and back to their homes. In the first stage of optimization procedure, which is based on the use of Monte Carlo Simulation, the optimal bus stops locations are determined, from which pupils should be picked up. Within this framework, the Geographic Information System (GIS) was used for data collection. As it turns out, the number of calculated bus stops is as minimal as possible, but they can still assure a maximal service area within the prescribed radius. Also it is assure that the walking distances pupils have to go across from their homes to the nearest bus stop and vice versa are as minimal as possible. The second stage of optimization procedure gives the optimal driving routes, driving schedules and driving fleet, which are related to the transportation of pupils from optimal bus stops to their schools and vice versa. For this purpose, the software which is based on ESRI ArcLogistics 9.3 and ESRI ArcView 9.31 packages, was used. The main characteristics of working mechanism of proposed two-stage algorithm are described in the paper. Also, the methodology for the setup and preparation of the used software for optimization of driving routes and schedules is briefly described. The positions of calculated optimal bus stops, optimal bus routes and driving schedules will be used for the purpose of actual planning, installation and redesign of existed transportation system, which will decrease the transportation costs to the lowest possible level.