Optimal resource allocation among transit agencies for fleet management

Authors

Tom V. Mathew
Snehamay Khasnabis
Sabyasachee Mishra

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2010

Subject Area

economics - capital costs, economics - operating costs, economics - subsidy, infrastructure - maintainance, mode - bus, place - north america

Keywords

Transit fleet management, Resource allocation, Genetic algorithm, Branch and bound algorithm

Abstract

Most transit agencies require government support for the replacement of their aging fleet. A procedure for equitable resource allocation among competing transit agencies for the purpose of transit fleet management is presented in this study. The proposed procedure is a 3-dimensional model that includes the choice of a fleet improvement program, agencies that may receive them, and the timing of investments. Earlier efforts to solve this problem involved the application of 1- or 2-dimensional models for each year of the planning period. These may have resulted in suboptimal solution as the models are blind to the impact of the fleet management program of the subsequent years. Therefore, a new model to address a long-term planning horizon is proposed. The model is formulated as a non-linear optimization problem of maximizing the total weighted average remaining life of the fleet subjected to improvement program and budgetary constraints. Two variants of the problem, one with an annual budget constraint and the other with a single budget constraint for the entire planning period, are formulated. Two independent approaches, namely, branch and bound algorithm and genetic algorithm are used to obtain the solution. An example problem is solved and results are discussed in details. Finally, the model is applied to a large scale real-world problem and a detailed analysis of the results is presented.

Rights

Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.

Comments

Transportation Research Part A Home Page: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09658564

Recommended Citation

Mathew, T.V., Khasnabis, S., & Mishra, S. (2010). Optimal resource allocation among transit agencies for fleet management. Transportation Research Part A, Vol. 44, (6), pp. 418-432.