- Email: [email protected]
Feature issue on “Traffic and transportation modelling”
European Journal of Operational Research 175 (2006) 1431–1434 www.elsevier.com/locate/ejor
Editorial
Feature issue on ‘‘Traffic and transportation modelling’’
Transportation system is a crucial element of our society as important are impacts that it produces on economy, environment and social life. In order to define effective transportation planning and analysis tools great effort has been addressed by researchers in many scientific fields. In particular, transportation represents one of the main fields of Operations Research, thus the EURO Working Group on Transportation was established with the aim to provide a forum for sharing information and experiences on research activities. To this purpose, it is used to organize an annual Meeting and to publish a selection of papers submitted for refereeing process. This issue contains a selection of papers presented during the 9th Meeting held in Bari (Italy) at the Technical University of Bari, from 10 to 13 June 2002. The Meeting was held simultaneously to the XIII Mini-EURO Conference on ‘‘Handling Uncertainty in the Analysis of Traffic and Transportation Systems’’ and was organized in three parallel sessions and two plenary sessions. In the first plenary Prof. George Klir (State University of New York, USA) gave his invited lecture on ‘‘Uncertainty: Many Faces and Utility’’; the second was devoted to a panel discussion on the subject: ‘‘Attitude to deal with Uncertainty in Transportation’’ whose discussants were Jotin Khisty (Illinois Institute of Technology, USA), Shinya Kikuchi (University of Delaware, USA), Hani Mahmassani (University of Mary-
land, USA) and Markos Papageorgiou (Technical University of Crete, Greece). The Meeting has gathered about 150 participants. A hundred of contributions from about two hundreds authors were presented. The main part of the presentations were focused on application of OR techniques and computation algorithms to traffic and transportation modelling [1]. The issue covers many topics of transportation science discussing both theoretical and practical aspects of the faced problem. The articles have been ordered and proposed according to the subject. In particular, the papers deal with traffic modelling, travel demand estimation and forecasting methods, route choice modelling, traffic assignment, public transportation, transportation planning and simulation.
1. Traffic modelling The paper ‘‘Motorway traffic parameters estimation from mobile phone counts’’ by Astarita, Bertini, dÕElia and Guido proposes a method to estimate the traffic flow and density on a motorway using cellular phones on board of vehicles. The paper by DellÕOrco ‘‘A dynamic network loading model for mesosimulation in transportation systems’’ presents a new traffic simulation model based on discrete ‘‘packet’’, considering an uniform acceleration of vehicles. The work by Garcı´a, Luz Lopez, Nin˜o, and Verastegui ‘‘A
0377-2217/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2005.02.019
1432
Editorial / European Journal of Operational Research 175 (2006) 1431–1434
continuous whole-link travel time model with occupancy constraint’’ presents an attempt to define a dynamic network loading model on the basis of the time cost function concept.
2. Travel demand estimation and forecasting methods The problems related to travel demand are discussed at different levels and approaches. Random utility based sequential models for the simulation of trip-chains is the topic of the paper ‘‘Experimental tour-based travel demand models’’ by Festa, Condino and Mazzulla, where some experimental results obtained for a medium-sized town case study are reported. The paper by Codina, Garcı´a and Marı´n entitled ‘‘New algorithmic alternatives for the O-D matrix adjustment problem on traffic networks’’ proposes two alternative algorithms for solving the problem of O-D matrix estimation by using traffic counts in the framework of static user equilibrium traffic assignment. In the framework of the travel demand estimation, the paper ‘‘A set theoretic framework for enumerating matches in surveys and its application to reducing inaccuracies in vehicle roadside surveys’’ by Clegg presents a general method to solve also the problem of correcting false matches in licence plate survey data.
3. Route choice modelling Another topic faced in this issue concerns route choice and vehicle routing problems. The papers selected addressed the research towards both passenger and freight transport. With respect to freight transport, two papers have been selected: the paper ‘‘Fuzzy graph modelling for hazardous material telegeomonitoring’’ by Boulmakoul and the paper ‘‘A stochastic route choice model in optimal control of road freight flows: a Mexican case study’’ by Moreno-Quintero. The first one refers to hazardous material transportation and proposes a decision support systems, based on GIS technology (Geographical Information Systems), that allows to analyse and define routing strategies
for minimizing the transportation risk. The second paper deals with the minimization of the costs from the road managers stand-point; it proposes a procedure for the optimal control of road freight flows and a case study in which the robustness of the procedure is tested. Then, Henn and Ottomanelli in their paper ‘‘Handling uncertainty in route choice models: from probabilistic to possibilistic approaches’’ focus the attention on how handling uncertainty lying in path choice problem; they analyse different approaches, and then propose a new model where drivers choice behaviour is defined within the framework of the possibility theory.
4. Traffic assignment The paper ‘‘User equilibrium traffic network assignment with stochastic travel times and late arrival penalty’’ by Watling also deals with traffic assignment and uncertainty: starting from the classical User Equilibrium problem, he proposes an interesting new model (named LAPUE) which is able to incorporate drivers aversion to the risk of late arrival, in the face of uncertain travel times. The contribution ‘‘A demand model with departure time choice for within-day dynamic traffic assignment’’ by Bellei, Gentile, Meschini and Papola describes the formulation and computation of a large-scale multi-modal transportation modelling system, incorporating complex issues such as within-day dynamic traffic assignment and departure time choice. Lotito in ‘‘Issue in the implementation of the DSD algorithm for the traffic assignment problem’’ discusses the Disaggregated Simplicial Decomposition (DSD) algorithm for the traffic assignment problem and proposes a Newton-like method to solve the QKP (Quadratic Knapsack Problem) when the quadratic functional is convex but not necessarily strictly.
5. Public transport The goal of optimizing the many elements of a public transport system have also been undertaken
Editorial / European Journal of Operational Research 175 (2006) 1431–1434
in this set of contributions. In their work ‘‘A twophase insertion technique of unexpected customers for a dynamic dial-a-ride problem’’ the authors Coslovich, Pesenti and Ukovich describe a twophase insertion optimization technique based on route perturbations to solve, in real-time, unexpected customers in a single-vehicle dial-a-ride service. The article ‘‘A time-space network based exact optimization model for multi-depot bus scheduling’’ by Kliewer, Mellouli and Suhl deals with the multi-depot, multi-vehicle-type bus scheduling problem (MDVSP), involving multiple depots for vehicles and different vehicle types for timetabled trips. The problem is solved by a time-space-based modelling approach, that allows a size reduction of the corresponding mathematical models compared to other existing methods. Tram fleet optimal management is the topic of the contribution ‘‘A model for the management of a tram fleet’’ by Carrese and Ottone; they present a procedure for the management of a tram fleet maintenance. A set of two related models has been developed in order to forecast and point out time and operating cost of the examined stock: the first is a probabilistic model for the on-line anomaly management, and for the analysis of shop maintenance operations, the second one computes the Life Cycle Cost.
6. Traffic control strategies A timely overview on the applications of the signal control strategy TUC is given by Dinopoulou, Diakaki and Papageorgiou in the paper ‘‘Applications of the urban traffic control strategy TUC’’, where basic philosophy, design methodology, characteristics are analysed and results from applications in both simulated and field conditions are presented. The interesting paper ‘‘Intelligent parking systems’’ by Teodorovic´ and Lucˇic´ faces the problem of dynamic parking space inventory control. A procedure for real-time parking supply system management is described; it is based on a combination of fuzzy logic and integer programming techniques and allows ‘‘on-line’’ decisions whether to accept or reject a new driverÕs request for parking.
1433
7. Transport systems planning and simulation This issue covers also approaches in network design, transportation planning and terminal management simulation. The paper ‘‘Heuristics for urban road network design: lane layout and signal settings’’ by Cantarella, Pavone and Vitetta deals with the problem of combined design of network topology and signal settings. They compare the performances of different metaheuristics algorithms by application to two urban networks. The paper ‘‘A decision support approach for the evaluation of transport investment alternatives’’ by Caliskan defines a decision-making method based on Cognitive Map and Analytic Hierarchy Process to support strategic investments on the transport system; the methods are then applied to determine the optimal choice for the possible third Bosphorus crossing. The contribution ‘‘Object modeling and path computation for multimodal travel systems’’ by Bielli, Boulmakoul and Mouncif deals with the planning problem of multimodal traveling and presents an approach based on the object-oriented modeling paradigm, GIS tool and the implementation of a multimodal shortest path algorithm. As regards the container management problem in a port, the paper ‘‘Object oriented model for container terminal distributed simulation’’ by Bielli, Boulmakoul and Rida develops a distributed discrete-event simulation model of the terminal operations based on the objectoriented modeling paradigm, and discusses the calibration and validation problems of the implemented simulator. The papers published in this issue have been selected after a peer-reviewing process and each of them has been reviewed by two or three referees. Indeed, for this effort we thank fifty colleagues that efficiently refereed the submitted papers and also we are sorry with authors for some lateness in finalising the Issue. Moreover, we wish to thank all authors, participants and members of the EURO Working Group on Transportation for their contribution to the success of the Meeting. Many other interesting and important problems currently affecting the society, such as road safety, sustainable mobility, traffic congestion management, freight transportation and intelligent
1434
Editorial / European Journal of Operational Research 175 (2006) 1431–1434
transportation systems have been widely faced by the OR community with the implementation and experimentation of new modelling tools and decision-making support systems [2]. Therefore, the intention of the EURO Working Group Transportation is to continue in publishing these contributions in order to improve the knowledge and the transfer of efficient operational systems to practitioners and decision-makers responsible of traffic management and transportation services.
References [1] Proceedings of the 13th Mini-EURO Conference on ‘‘Handling Uncertainty in the Analysis of Traffic and Transportation Systems’’ and 9th Meeting of the EURO Working Group Transportation on ‘‘Intermodality, Sustainability and Intelligent Transportation Systems’’, 10–13 June 2002, Bari, Italy. Edited by the local Organising Committee. Available from: http://www.iasi.cnr.it/ewgt/13conferencePROC. html.
[2] Feature Cluster on Traffic and Transportation Systems Analysis, M. Bielli, Guest Editor, EJOR vol. 155, no. 3, 16 June 2004.
Maurizio Bielli Institute of Systems Analysis and Informatics ‘‘Antonio Ruberti’’ National Research Council Viale Manzoni 30, 00185 Rome Italy Tel.: +39 06 77161; fax: +39 06 7716461 E-mail address: [email protected] URL: http://www.iasi.cnr.it/ewgt/home.html Michele Ottomanelli Department of Environmental Engineering and for Sustainable Development II Faculty of Engineering Technical University of Bari Viale del Turismo 8 74100 Taranto Italy E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 12 April 2005
Editorial
Feature issue on ‘‘Traffic and transportation modelling’’
Transportation system is a crucial element of our society as important are impacts that it produces on economy, environment and social life. In order to define effective transportation planning and analysis tools great effort has been addressed by researchers in many scientific fields. In particular, transportation represents one of the main fields of Operations Research, thus the EURO Working Group on Transportation was established with the aim to provide a forum for sharing information and experiences on research activities. To this purpose, it is used to organize an annual Meeting and to publish a selection of papers submitted for refereeing process. This issue contains a selection of papers presented during the 9th Meeting held in Bari (Italy) at the Technical University of Bari, from 10 to 13 June 2002. The Meeting was held simultaneously to the XIII Mini-EURO Conference on ‘‘Handling Uncertainty in the Analysis of Traffic and Transportation Systems’’ and was organized in three parallel sessions and two plenary sessions. In the first plenary Prof. George Klir (State University of New York, USA) gave his invited lecture on ‘‘Uncertainty: Many Faces and Utility’’; the second was devoted to a panel discussion on the subject: ‘‘Attitude to deal with Uncertainty in Transportation’’ whose discussants were Jotin Khisty (Illinois Institute of Technology, USA), Shinya Kikuchi (University of Delaware, USA), Hani Mahmassani (University of Mary-
land, USA) and Markos Papageorgiou (Technical University of Crete, Greece). The Meeting has gathered about 150 participants. A hundred of contributions from about two hundreds authors were presented. The main part of the presentations were focused on application of OR techniques and computation algorithms to traffic and transportation modelling [1]. The issue covers many topics of transportation science discussing both theoretical and practical aspects of the faced problem. The articles have been ordered and proposed according to the subject. In particular, the papers deal with traffic modelling, travel demand estimation and forecasting methods, route choice modelling, traffic assignment, public transportation, transportation planning and simulation.
1. Traffic modelling The paper ‘‘Motorway traffic parameters estimation from mobile phone counts’’ by Astarita, Bertini, dÕElia and Guido proposes a method to estimate the traffic flow and density on a motorway using cellular phones on board of vehicles. The paper by DellÕOrco ‘‘A dynamic network loading model for mesosimulation in transportation systems’’ presents a new traffic simulation model based on discrete ‘‘packet’’, considering an uniform acceleration of vehicles. The work by Garcı´a, Luz Lopez, Nin˜o, and Verastegui ‘‘A
0377-2217/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2005.02.019
1432
Editorial / European Journal of Operational Research 175 (2006) 1431–1434
continuous whole-link travel time model with occupancy constraint’’ presents an attempt to define a dynamic network loading model on the basis of the time cost function concept.
2. Travel demand estimation and forecasting methods The problems related to travel demand are discussed at different levels and approaches. Random utility based sequential models for the simulation of trip-chains is the topic of the paper ‘‘Experimental tour-based travel demand models’’ by Festa, Condino and Mazzulla, where some experimental results obtained for a medium-sized town case study are reported. The paper by Codina, Garcı´a and Marı´n entitled ‘‘New algorithmic alternatives for the O-D matrix adjustment problem on traffic networks’’ proposes two alternative algorithms for solving the problem of O-D matrix estimation by using traffic counts in the framework of static user equilibrium traffic assignment. In the framework of the travel demand estimation, the paper ‘‘A set theoretic framework for enumerating matches in surveys and its application to reducing inaccuracies in vehicle roadside surveys’’ by Clegg presents a general method to solve also the problem of correcting false matches in licence plate survey data.
3. Route choice modelling Another topic faced in this issue concerns route choice and vehicle routing problems. The papers selected addressed the research towards both passenger and freight transport. With respect to freight transport, two papers have been selected: the paper ‘‘Fuzzy graph modelling for hazardous material telegeomonitoring’’ by Boulmakoul and the paper ‘‘A stochastic route choice model in optimal control of road freight flows: a Mexican case study’’ by Moreno-Quintero. The first one refers to hazardous material transportation and proposes a decision support systems, based on GIS technology (Geographical Information Systems), that allows to analyse and define routing strategies
for minimizing the transportation risk. The second paper deals with the minimization of the costs from the road managers stand-point; it proposes a procedure for the optimal control of road freight flows and a case study in which the robustness of the procedure is tested. Then, Henn and Ottomanelli in their paper ‘‘Handling uncertainty in route choice models: from probabilistic to possibilistic approaches’’ focus the attention on how handling uncertainty lying in path choice problem; they analyse different approaches, and then propose a new model where drivers choice behaviour is defined within the framework of the possibility theory.
4. Traffic assignment The paper ‘‘User equilibrium traffic network assignment with stochastic travel times and late arrival penalty’’ by Watling also deals with traffic assignment and uncertainty: starting from the classical User Equilibrium problem, he proposes an interesting new model (named LAPUE) which is able to incorporate drivers aversion to the risk of late arrival, in the face of uncertain travel times. The contribution ‘‘A demand model with departure time choice for within-day dynamic traffic assignment’’ by Bellei, Gentile, Meschini and Papola describes the formulation and computation of a large-scale multi-modal transportation modelling system, incorporating complex issues such as within-day dynamic traffic assignment and departure time choice. Lotito in ‘‘Issue in the implementation of the DSD algorithm for the traffic assignment problem’’ discusses the Disaggregated Simplicial Decomposition (DSD) algorithm for the traffic assignment problem and proposes a Newton-like method to solve the QKP (Quadratic Knapsack Problem) when the quadratic functional is convex but not necessarily strictly.
5. Public transport The goal of optimizing the many elements of a public transport system have also been undertaken
Editorial / European Journal of Operational Research 175 (2006) 1431–1434
in this set of contributions. In their work ‘‘A twophase insertion technique of unexpected customers for a dynamic dial-a-ride problem’’ the authors Coslovich, Pesenti and Ukovich describe a twophase insertion optimization technique based on route perturbations to solve, in real-time, unexpected customers in a single-vehicle dial-a-ride service. The article ‘‘A time-space network based exact optimization model for multi-depot bus scheduling’’ by Kliewer, Mellouli and Suhl deals with the multi-depot, multi-vehicle-type bus scheduling problem (MDVSP), involving multiple depots for vehicles and different vehicle types for timetabled trips. The problem is solved by a time-space-based modelling approach, that allows a size reduction of the corresponding mathematical models compared to other existing methods. Tram fleet optimal management is the topic of the contribution ‘‘A model for the management of a tram fleet’’ by Carrese and Ottone; they present a procedure for the management of a tram fleet maintenance. A set of two related models has been developed in order to forecast and point out time and operating cost of the examined stock: the first is a probabilistic model for the on-line anomaly management, and for the analysis of shop maintenance operations, the second one computes the Life Cycle Cost.
6. Traffic control strategies A timely overview on the applications of the signal control strategy TUC is given by Dinopoulou, Diakaki and Papageorgiou in the paper ‘‘Applications of the urban traffic control strategy TUC’’, where basic philosophy, design methodology, characteristics are analysed and results from applications in both simulated and field conditions are presented. The interesting paper ‘‘Intelligent parking systems’’ by Teodorovic´ and Lucˇic´ faces the problem of dynamic parking space inventory control. A procedure for real-time parking supply system management is described; it is based on a combination of fuzzy logic and integer programming techniques and allows ‘‘on-line’’ decisions whether to accept or reject a new driverÕs request for parking.
1433
7. Transport systems planning and simulation This issue covers also approaches in network design, transportation planning and terminal management simulation. The paper ‘‘Heuristics for urban road network design: lane layout and signal settings’’ by Cantarella, Pavone and Vitetta deals with the problem of combined design of network topology and signal settings. They compare the performances of different metaheuristics algorithms by application to two urban networks. The paper ‘‘A decision support approach for the evaluation of transport investment alternatives’’ by Caliskan defines a decision-making method based on Cognitive Map and Analytic Hierarchy Process to support strategic investments on the transport system; the methods are then applied to determine the optimal choice for the possible third Bosphorus crossing. The contribution ‘‘Object modeling and path computation for multimodal travel systems’’ by Bielli, Boulmakoul and Mouncif deals with the planning problem of multimodal traveling and presents an approach based on the object-oriented modeling paradigm, GIS tool and the implementation of a multimodal shortest path algorithm. As regards the container management problem in a port, the paper ‘‘Object oriented model for container terminal distributed simulation’’ by Bielli, Boulmakoul and Rida develops a distributed discrete-event simulation model of the terminal operations based on the objectoriented modeling paradigm, and discusses the calibration and validation problems of the implemented simulator. The papers published in this issue have been selected after a peer-reviewing process and each of them has been reviewed by two or three referees. Indeed, for this effort we thank fifty colleagues that efficiently refereed the submitted papers and also we are sorry with authors for some lateness in finalising the Issue. Moreover, we wish to thank all authors, participants and members of the EURO Working Group on Transportation for their contribution to the success of the Meeting. Many other interesting and important problems currently affecting the society, such as road safety, sustainable mobility, traffic congestion management, freight transportation and intelligent
1434
Editorial / European Journal of Operational Research 175 (2006) 1431–1434
transportation systems have been widely faced by the OR community with the implementation and experimentation of new modelling tools and decision-making support systems [2]. Therefore, the intention of the EURO Working Group Transportation is to continue in publishing these contributions in order to improve the knowledge and the transfer of efficient operational systems to practitioners and decision-makers responsible of traffic management and transportation services.
References [1] Proceedings of the 13th Mini-EURO Conference on ‘‘Handling Uncertainty in the Analysis of Traffic and Transportation Systems’’ and 9th Meeting of the EURO Working Group Transportation on ‘‘Intermodality, Sustainability and Intelligent Transportation Systems’’, 10–13 June 2002, Bari, Italy. Edited by the local Organising Committee. Available from: http://www.iasi.cnr.it/ewgt/13conferencePROC. html.
[2] Feature Cluster on Traffic and Transportation Systems Analysis, M. Bielli, Guest Editor, EJOR vol. 155, no. 3, 16 June 2004.
Maurizio Bielli Institute of Systems Analysis and Informatics ‘‘Antonio Ruberti’’ National Research Council Viale Manzoni 30, 00185 Rome Italy Tel.: +39 06 77161; fax: +39 06 7716461 E-mail address: [email protected] URL: http://www.iasi.cnr.it/ewgt/home.html Michele Ottomanelli Department of Environmental Engineering and for Sustainable Development II Faculty of Engineering Technical University of Bari Viale del Turismo 8 74100 Taranto Italy E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 12 April 2005