AxE

Abstract

This paper presents AxE, a package designed to help transport networks analysis and design.AxE was born in 1995. It stems from the experience of Prof. G. Salerno in both teaching transportation theory at an Italian University and consulting with large institutions and companies on transportation modeling and planning. In his work Prof. Salerno has been extensively using APL for years. He regularly teaches his students an introduction to APL (using IBM's TryAPL2) and uses APL to code the major algorithms related to transportation theory. He also uses APL for his professional work as a consultant and to perform management tasks.The implementation of AxE has been a joint effort led by Prof. Salerno with help from other professionals (namely, the speaker, Francesco Pedulla and Michele Marrone, then both at IBM, and Marco Pascucci, a freelance consultant). The AxE package currently runs on Apple Macintosh systems and has been coded entirely using APL.68000. A porting to Dyalog APL for MS Windows95 currently is under evaluation.First, the article briefly presents the package and its features. The body of the article is devoted to a discussion of the advantages (and, sometimes, limitations) that the use of APL in general and APL.68000 in particular has provided in the following areas during the design and implementation phases of AxE:1. algorithm coding;2. user interface generation;3. management of a relatively large and complex application.AxE is currently available from Prof. G. Salerno (mc2800@mclink.it). Francesco Pedulla can be contacted at md3547@mclink.it.AxE is currently available from Prof. G. Salerno (mc2800@mclink.it). Francesco Pedulla can be contacted at md3547@mclink.it.