A smart school routing and scheduling problem for the new normalcy

Area of Science:

• Operations Research
• Transportation Logistics
• Public Health Adaptations

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated adaptations in public transportation for the safe return to schools and workplaces.
• New requirements include arrival reliability for staggered schedules, reduced bus capacity due to physical distancing, and driver welfare.
• University transportation services face unique challenges in balancing demand, travel time, and resource limitations under these new conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an optimized, integrated transportation solution for universities operating under post-COVID-19 safety regulations.
• To address challenges of arrival reliability, staggered scheduling, reduced capacity, and driver conditions within a university transport context.
• To optimize social interests by balancing service demand coverage and minimizing travel time with limited resources.

Main Methods:

• A bi-level optimization approach was proposed, integrating strategic bus routing and scheduling with dynamic operational routing.
• The strategic phase involved solving bus routing and scheduling sub-problems.
• The operational phase utilized real-time student demand via a mobile app and incorporated stop-skipping strategies for travel time minimization. Performance of solution algorithms, including a tailored Tabu Search, was evaluated using benchmark instances.

Main Results:

• The integrated transport solution demonstrated the ability to meet new safety and operational requirements within a university setting using existing resources.
• Numerical experimentation identified effective solution algorithms for this class of transportation optimization problems.
• The proposed system successfully balanced demand coverage and travel time optimization under resource constraints.

Conclusions:

• The developed bi-level optimization approach provides an effective framework for adapting university transportation systems to the 'New Normalcy'.
• The integration of strategic planning with real-time operational adjustments, including mobile app data and stop-skipping, enhances transport efficiency and reliability.
• The study confirms the feasibility of meeting new public health mandates while optimizing university transportation logistics and driver conditions.