Telematics on urban passenger transport

The monograph discusses the application of telematics in dispatch control systems in urban passenger transport. The role of telematics as a technological basis in automating the solution of control tasks, accounting and analysis of the volume and quality of transport work in modern dispatch control systems on urban passenger transport is shown. Analytical models have been developed to estimate the capacity of a high-speed bus transportation system on a dedicated line. Mathematical models and algorithms for predicting passenger vehicle interior filling at critical stages of urban passenger transport routes are presented. The issues of application of the concept of the phase space of states introduced by the authors to assess the quality of the passenger transportation process on the route of urban passenger transport are described. The developed classification of service levels and their application in order to inform passengers at stopping points about the degree of filling of the passenger compartment of the arriving vehicle is described. The material is based on the results of theoretical research and practical work on the creation and implementation of automated control systems for urban passenger transport in Russian cities. The material of M.H. Duque Sarango's dissertation submitted for the degree of Candidate of Technical Sciences in the specialty 05.22.10 "Operation of motor transport" was used. It will be useful to specialists in the field of telematics on urban passenger transport.

Infrastructure Service Assessment Model Based on a Service Quality Gap Model—Focused on South Korea

To improve the quality of life (QOL) of the citizen, it is essential to not only to secure a quantitative stock, such as the number or extension of individual infrastructure, but to also understand the perspective of the public on service levels and the demand for infrastructure. In this study, an infrastructure service level assessment model that reflects the demands of citizens is proposed, and the importance and adequacy of infrastructure service indexes for setting priorities and goals for the investment of government funds in infrastructure are verified. The evaluation items used in this model included usability, accessibility, and recovery speed. The infrastructure service level for 12,500 Korean citizens was surveyed using the proposed assessment model, and the results reveal that the satisfaction of citizens with their residences had a significant effect on the QOL improvement, and that the level of infrastructure performance in a residential area significantly affected the satisfaction of citizens with their residences. In addition, the results revealed that the quantitative and qualitative aspects of infrastructure should be simultaneously considered. Lastly, the possible application of this model for the evaluation of the effectiveness of investment for infrastructure improvement is proposed.

MILP of multitask scheduling of geographically distributed maintenance tasks

Due to its proactive impact on the serviceability of components in a system, preventive maintenance plays an important role particularly in systems of geographically spread infrastructure such as utilities networks in commercial buildings. What makes such systems differ from the classical schemes is the routing and technicians' travel times. Besides, maintenance in commercial buildings is characterized by its short tasks’ durations and spatial distribution within and between different buildings, a class of problems that has not been suitably investigated. Although it is not trivial to assign particular duties solely to multi-skilled teams under limited time and capacity constraints, the problem becomes more challenging when travel routes, durations and service levels are considered during the execution of the daily maintenance tasks. To address this problem, we propose a Mixed Integer Linear Programming Model that considers the above settings. The model exact solution recommends collaborative choices that include the number of maintenance teams, the selected tasks, routes, tasks schedules, all detailed to days and teams. The model will reduce the cost of labor, replacement parts, penalties on service levels and travel time. The optimization model has been tested using different maintenance scenarios taken from a real maintenance provider in the UAE. Using CPLEX solver, the findings demonstrate an inspiring time utilization, schedules of minimal routing and high service levels using a minimum number of teams. Different travel speeds of diverse assortment of tasks, durations and cost settings have been tested for further sensitivity analysis.

Improving Resiliency in Healthcare Service by Minimizing Unsatisfied Demand

Natural or manmade disasters can bring havoc to the healthcare industry in terms of poor services, out of stocks, cost overruns, and loss of lives. Specifically, the aftermath of disasters can be brutal if not managed properly. The quicker the healthcare providers recover, the lesser the impact would be. A resilient system has the potential to reduce the recovery time significantly. Healthcare providers under emergency scenarios may realize out-of-stock situations for their critical medical supplies. The out-of-stock supplies potentially cause poor patient care including death. COVID 19 is an unfortunate example where critical medical supplies were completely out for many medical providers and that had a serious negative impact on healthcare service deliveries. Healthcare providers needed to replenish their supplies from the overseas manufacturing plants, or central distribution centers, or unaffected regional distribution centers. Most of the times healthcare authorities struggle to secure critical medical supplies from other distribution centers due to operational and transportation issues. Depending on the disaster condition, sometimes many health care providers are beyond reach due to damaged transportation networks. This is the perfect time to share critical medical supplies from unaffected regions. Proven techniques like operation research can alleviate this situation. There are very few works that have been done in the field of healthcare service deliveries in case of a disaster. This chapter discusses the modeling techniques using operations research to improve the service levels while minimizing unsatisfied demand in the natural disaster-affected zones.

Mapping the Process to Improve the Operative and Environmental Performance of Feeder Ports

Container terminals play an important role in linking regional and continental areas for the exchange of goods. Port authorities have to provide their services under competitive prices and service levels to customers. This increasing competition pushes feeder ports to improve their processes. The goal is to increase the port capacity to deal with the increasing demand for containers and, at the same time, to reduce the environmental impact and operative costs. The authors address the gap in the literature regarding alternatives for feeder ports. They analyse best practices adopted in international terminals and evaluate the implementation in feeder ports. They apply a quantitative approach using the simulation software AnyLogic. The model uses market data to analyse the vessel unloading process at the berth. Moreover, an alternative to reduce the CO2 emissions for diesel equipment is presented. A flowchart for the vessel unloading and loading operations is proposed that includes the strategies to increase capacity and efficiency of operations and the utilisation of equipment.

Contribution of Best Practices to Promote Sustainable Urban Freight Transport

Urban logistics decision makers face serious challenges in trying to make urban freight transport (UFT) efficient and sustainable. Therefore, it is necessary to identify best practices (BPs) to promote improvements on activity levels, modal shifts to lower-carbon transport systems, lowering energy and intensity, and reducing fuel carbon intensity. This paper conducts an exhaustive literature review that seeks to identify that are directly applicable to BPs promoting sustainable UFT and that indicate the opportunities and challenges of urban logistics. The results indicate that, although BPs make sense for themselves, the most powerful effect occurs when two or more of them are used together, multiplying their strengths. Furthermore, there is an expressive participation of environmental and economic indicators (costs and service levels) to the detriment of social indicators, thus indicating a literary gap.

Green road–rail intermodal routing problem with improved pickup and delivery services integrating truck departure time planning under uncertainty: an interactive fuzzy programming approach

This paper addresses the multi-objective optimization for the road–rail intermodal routing problem that aims to minimize the total costs and carbon dioxide emissions of the routes. To achieve high timeliness of the entire transportation process, pickup and delivery services are simultaneously improved based on the employment of fuzzy soft time windows to measure their service levels. The modeling of road–rail intermodal routing considers fixed schedules of rail and time flexibility of road to match the real-world transportation scenario, in which travel times and carbon dioxide emission factors of road services are considered to be time-varying. To improve the feasibility of the routing, uncertainty of travel times and carbon dioxide emission factors of road services and capacities of rail services are incorporated into the problem. By applying trapezoidal fuzzy numbers to formulate the uncertainty, we propose a fuzzy multi-objective nonlinear optimization model for the routing problem that integrates the truck departure time planning for road services. After processing the model with fuzzy chance-constrained programming and linearization, we obtain an auxiliary equivalent crisp linear model and solve it by designing an interactive fuzzy programming approach with the Bounded Objective Function method. Based on an empirical case study, we demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach and discuss the effects of improving the confidence levels and service levels on the optimization results. The case analysis reveals several managerial insights that help to realize an efficient transportation organization by making effective trade-offs among lowering costs, reducing emissions, improving service levels, and enhancing feasibility.

Using open data for digital innovation: Barriers for use and recommendations for publishers

Open data from the public sector can fuel the innovation of digital products. This paper investigates barriers and success factors regarding use of open data in such innovations, and how public sector can increase the value of published data. A multimethod approach was used. An initial study identified aspects of relevance through interviews, a system development experiment, and a focus group. An in-depth study used the insight to perform interviews and a survey targeting innovators. Details on data needs, discovery, assessment, and use were found as well as barriers regarding use of open data in digital product innovations. Associated recommendations to data owners are provided regarding how they can increase the innovation capacity through appropriate licenses and service levels; convenient access mechanisms; publishing channels and infrastructures; transparency and dialogue; data, metadata, documentation, and APIs of high quality; harmonization and standardization.

Assessing the 2019 Redesign of Bulgarian Fiscal Equalization System

In many countries the narrowing of horizontal fiscal imbalance at local government level is an important issue of national fiscal policy. Large fiscal disparities at municipal level could lead either to lower service levels in fiscally poor regions or to higher tax rates for similar service levels in these regions. In turn, this could thwart efforts to reduce inequality in income distribution between individuals or could induce fiscally inefficient migration of business and individuals. Since the launch of fiscal decentralization reforms in Bulgaria in 2003 part of central government grants system for municipalities has been the equalization grant aimed at financing a minimum level of local services delivery. The equalization formula has undergone many changes during the years, and the last one was implemented in 2019. The main focus of the current study is to compare the equalizing effect of the equalization schemes applied in Bulgaria in 2018 and 2019. In order to test whether the 2018 and 2019 distribution formulas carry an equalizing effect with respect to municipal expenditure needs, per capita transfers received is regressed on three variables or indicators reflecting the differences in the municipal expenditure needs. Our results show that the new equalization mechanism as of 2019 is better designed to capture the differences in municipal expenditure needs and to alleviate fiscal disparities at local level when compared to the mechanism applied in 2018.