-Personal rapid transit (PRT) is getting attention as a new form of transportation. It is energy efficient and provides the high level of passenger service. In this study, the dynamic PRT dispatching and routing problem is dealt with. Passengers request transportation service on a complex network, and an operating system monitors passenger arrivals and coordinates vehicles in real time. A new online dispatching and routing algorithm is proposed, which minimizes the total travel distance of vehicles and the waiting time of passengers. The algorithm dispatches vehicles by considering multiple vehicles' state and multiple passengers at the same time. In particular, finding the shortest-time path is attempted by taking into account the future congestion on lanes. Discrete-event simulation is employed to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results show the algorithm in this study outperforms others.

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Personal rapid transit (PRT) is a new transportation system, which is energy efficient and brings high quality of customer service. Customers arrive dynamically at stations and request transportation service. In this paper, we propose a new online PRT dispatching algorithm for pickup and delivery of customers. We adopt the nearest neighbor dispatching rule, which is known as performing well in general. We extend the rule with bipartite matching in order to deal with multiple vehicles and customers at the same time. We suggest a systematic way for selecting vehicles that will be considered to be dispatched, since the scope with which vehicles are selected may affect the system performance. We regard the empty travel distance of vehicles and the customer waiting time as the performance measures. By using simulation experiments, it has been examined that the scope of dispatching affects the system performance. The proposed algorithm has been validated by comparing with other dispatching rules for transportation services. We have shown that our algorithm is more suitable for PRT operating environment than other dispatching rules.

The railway signalling system plays an essential role in the headway and routing control for a safe and efficient train operation. The reliable and safe operation of the system is very important because the failure of the railway signalling system can lead to the collision, derailment, or unexpected stop of a train. So far, the conventional wayside signal mode (ATS: Automatic Train Stop) has been generally used as the railway signalling system. However, this system is highly linked to a risk of major accidents resulted from human mistakes such as missing a signal or careless control of train speed. Accordingly, the onboard signal mode (ATC: Automatic Train Control) as an alternative of ATS has been recently introduced and applied to transmit effectively the information on speed control of a train by using computers and communication equipment. In the process of replacing the obsolete signal system, it is necessary to switch over the system while providing passengers with normal services. Therefore, the integration of a railway signaling system compatible for both ATS and ATC and its interface is discussed in this study. In particular, the implementation scenario required for operation planning of the integrated system was designed, and the results as well as effects of its applicability test were also presented.

In this paper, we verify the driverless operation possibility of MBS, which could overcome the defects of conventional track-circuit-based FBS, such as additional needs of maintenance and others problems according to short-circuit sensibility and, and which could allow the minimal interval between trains. With MBS, we can expect the reduction of headway, then the increase of transportation demand, and the protection of unnecessary speed variation because it allows the real time detection of train position from central office, and direct transmission of data between preceding trains and the following ones. In addition, it is possible to reduce the number of wayside-equipment substantially, to improve the passenger service, and to the achieve the positive economic effects by comfortable ride.