Modeling and optimization of transportation systems

Abstract

I am pleased to write a short editorial for this special issue, which highlights several areas of strength of the Journal of Advanced Transportation such as public transport and airport systems, transportation planning, techniques of transport systems analysis, and multiobjective optimization of transport systems. The emerging area of evacuation planning is also represented. The issue coincidentally highlights the truly global nature of our authors, as well as the interest that we have in attracting outstanding senior as well as emerging authors. A sister special issue on transport and traffic networks will be edited by Co-Editor-in-Chief William Lam. The papers that have been selected for this special issue are “On the allocation of new lines in a competitive transit network with uncertain demand and scale economies” by Zhi-Chun Li, William H. K. Lam, and S. C. Wong; “Simulation-based analysis of personal rapid transit systems: service and energy performance assessment of the Masdar City PRT Case” by Katharina Mueller and Sgouris P. Sgouridis; “Model of personal attitudes towards transit service quality” by Khandker M. Nurul Habib, Lina Kattan, and Md. Tazul Islam; “IF-EM: an interval-parameter fuzzy linear programming model for environment-oriented evacuation planning under uncertainty” by Qian Tan, Guo H. Huang, Chaozhong Wu, and Yanpeng Cai; “Airport gate reassignments considering deterministic and stochastic flight departure/arrival times” by Shangyao Yan, Ching-Hui Tang, and Yu-Zhou Hou; and “Multiple objective optimization of the fleet sizing problem for road freight transportation” by Jacek Żak, Adam Redmer, and Piotr Sawicki. Li et al. consider an innovative model for allocating new transit lines in a competitive network with demand uncertainty and scale economies. They explicitly consider interactions among the transit authority, transit operators, and transit passengers. Mueller and Sgouridis consider a zero-emission model city that is implementing a personal rapid transit system. The PRT will run throughout the city on an underground network. A discrete-event simulation model that supports the design and implementation of the system is described. Habib et al. present an investigation of the reasons for the use of transit in Calgary, Canada. The reasons are expressed as functions of people's perceptions and attitudes towards transit service quality. A multinomial logit model is developed to capture unobservable latent variables useful in defining passenger perceptions and attitudes. Tan et al. consider uncertainty related to factors involved in evacuation activities. The paper employs inexact optimization techniques to address the uncertainties. An interval-parameter fuzzy model is developed for evacuation management under uncertainty. Yan et al. develop an airport gate reassignment model that considers both deterministic (near future) and stochastic (later) flight departure/arrival times. An integer programming technique is applied to formulate a gate reassignment model (GRM). Because gate reassignment needs to be done repeatedly, the GRM is applied within a dynamic gate reassignment framework. Żak et al. consider a fleet sizing problem in a road freight transportation company with a heterogeneous fleet as well as technical back-up facilities. The decision problem is formulated in terms of multiple objective mathematical programming based on queuing theory. Various technical and economic criteria and stakeholder interests are taken into account.