A Queueing Network Based Method for Evaluating Personal Rapid Transit Guideway Network Performance

Abstract

Personal rapid transit (PRT) is a new kind of mobility method aiming for sustainable and environmental friendly city development. This automated on-demand public transportation system could be a promising solution for first-mile and last-mile problem of existing public transit network. PRT provides passengers end-to-end service via small autonomous electrical cars operated on a dedicated network of guideway. The performance of this transportation system depends on the framework of guideway network, since the merge and station would lead to vehicles’ delay and queueing. Thus, it’s necessary to evaluate the performance of guideway network in the stage of PRT system planning and design. In this paper, we model the problem of network performance evaluation via Jackson queueing networks. The performances of network are measured by two parameters, namely average queue length and mean waiting time at each queue. In the case study, these two performance parameters are calculated. This paper provides a straightforward and practical way of PRT guideway network performance evaluation for PRT system planning and design.