A Quantum-Inspired Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for Parking Lot Rental to Shared E-Scooter Services

Abstract

Electric scooter sharing mobility services have recently spread in major cities all around the world. However, the bad parking behavior of users has become a major source of issues, provoking accidents and compromising urban decorum of public areas. Reducing wild parking habits can be pursued by setting reserved parking spaces. In this work, we consider the problem faced by a municipality that hosts e-scooter sharing services and must choose which locations in its territory may be rented as reserved parking lots to sharing companies, with the aim of maximizing a return on renting and while taking into account spatial consideration and parking needs of local residents. Since this problem may result difficult to solve even for a state-of-the-art optimization software, we propose a hybrid metaheuristic solution algorithm combining a quantum-inspired ant colony optimization algorithm with an exact large neighborhood search. Results of computational tests considering realistic instances referring to the Italian capital city of Rome show the superior performance of the proposed hybrid metaheuristic.

Mathematical Models for the Single-Channel and Multi-Channel PMU Allocation Problem and Their Solution Algorithms

“…Strategies such as special creation, crossover, and mutation functions are utilized to enforce the variables to be declared in the integer problem solving [72]. GA tries to minimize a penalty function, not necessarily the fitness one, and a penalty term is added to consider any infeasibility while the feasible region is explored [25][26][27]50,51]. The penalty function is performed with a binary tournament choice to find individuals for subsequent generations [25,26,50,51].…”

“…The inertia weight is utilized to balance the global exploration and local exploitation [51]. We use the linear decreasing inertia weight in Equation ( 12) [25][26][27]51].…”

“…A mechanism is utilized when the particle's best position and the swarm global optimal position are updated [21]. To explore the feasible region, a feasibility restriction is utilized to evaluate the constraint violation and deliver a feasible and optimal solution [25,27,39,47,48,51].…”

Constraint Optimization Model for Dynamic Parking Space Allocation

“…The work in [ 27 ] demonstrated a deep reinforcement learning-based cooperative approach to address the parking space allocation problem. The work in [ 28 ] proposed an ant colony optimization algorithm for parking lot rental to a shared E-scooter service. The work in [ 29 ] proposed a low-cost, high-performance middleware solution for unified parking management.…”

“…Objective Function Limitation [11] Minimizing CO 2 emissions by reducing searching time Prioritization is defined as first come, first serve, which denies the option of reservation [1] Finding appropriate travel routes Lacks the factors of flexibility and prioritization [12] Predicting available parking slot Their prediction system was developed based on public usage and lacks flexibility [13] Allocation of parking spaces Lacks prioritization mechanism [14] Allocating a suitable parking lot Lacks prioritization mechanism [15] Allocating a suitable parking lot Lacks prioritization mechanism [5] Consider parking preferences Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [16] Maximizing the availability of free parking Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [17] Minimizing carbon emissions by simulating the behavior of park-and-ride users Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [18] Organizing random arrivals of parking requests Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [19] Finding a parking slot based on time window constraint Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [20] Finding available park slots Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [21] Finding the nearest available parking slot Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [22] Forecasting parking lot availability Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [23] Reduction in parking time Lacks prioritization [24] Prediction of parking occupancy Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [25] Defining the most demanded time Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [26] Considering the priority of the demanders Lacks flexibility mechanism [7] Distribution of parking slots satisfying the constraints Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [27] Cost-based method of parking allocation Lacks prioritization [28] Reducing wild parking habits Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms [29] Enhancement in the usability of the parking system Lacks prioritization and flexibility mechanisms…”