Methodology for Designing Road Vehicle Service Facilities

Abstract

In modern methods of technological design, the capacity of service facilities depends on the number of cars entering them per unit of time. At the same time, regardless of the type of service object, the number of visits is somehow associated with intensity of the vehicle traffic on a given road, as well as with one of the characteristics that determine speed of this event. Such a characteristic, for example, for service or maintenance stations is intensity of vehicle failures, for fuelling stations – intensity of fuel consumption, for hotels and parking lots – intensity of the onset of fatigue for drivers and passengers. This gives ground for conclusion that there is a significant similarity between the processes that result in an event that can be called a visit to a service facility. Thus, the purpose of this theoretical study was to develop a common approach applicable to all road service facilities to determine the number of such events, as well as to develop a common methodology for their design.A characteristic feature of operation of service objects is a time-varying flow of demand for the operation of service facilities, as well as variable labour intensity and duration of troubleshooting or the provision of other service services. Systems in which the moments of receipt of requests for service and the duration of the services themselves are variable and random are called a queuing system. Therefore, to justify the number of car arrivals at road service facilities, the authors proposed a probabilistic method, the main tools of which are provisions and mathematical apparatus of the queuing theory.The main condition for functioning of the queuing system is the ratio between the incoming flow of requirements and the absolute throughput of the system. Thus, the mathematical model proposed by the authors considers the performance indicators of service facilities, depending on the size of the incoming flow of requirements and its variation, on the one hand, and on the throughput and performance of service facilities, on the other hand.