Flexible Emergency Vehicle Network Design considering Stochastic Demands and Inverse-Direction Lanes

Abstract

We study transportation network design with stochastic demands and emergency vehicle (EV) lanes. Different from previous studies, this paper considers two groups of users, auto and EV travelers, whose road access rights are differentiated in the network, and addresses the value of incorporating inverse-direction lanes in network design. We formulate the problem as a bilevel optimization model, where the upper-level model aims to determine the optimal design of EV lanes and the lower-level model uses the user equilibrium principle to forecast the route choice of road users. A simulation-based genetic algorithm is proposed to solve the model. With numerical experiments, we demonstrate the value of deploying inverse-direction EV lanes and the computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm. We reach an intriguing finding that both regular and EV lane users can benefit from building EV lanes.. . Running Example. Figure 1(a) shows a small urban transportation network with three nodes and five directed links. Link 1 has two lanes and each of links 2-5 is deployed with

Every Second Counts: A Comprehensive Review of Route Optimization and Priority Control for Urban Emergency Vehicles

“…While the simulation results showed that this approach could effectively increase the average speed of EMVs, it may also interfere with the normal driving of SVs traveling in the opposite lane. Wang et al [104] included opposite lanes in the design of urban road traffic networks and formulated a bilevel optimization model to optimize the design of EMV lanes and the routing of SVs. Numerical experiments demonstrated benefits for both EMVs and SVs resulting from the implementation of EMV lanes.…”

Sustainable and Resilient Transport Infrastructure

“…H. Wang et al [8] present a bilevel optimization model to design the transport network with stochastic demands and emergency vehicle lanes. Two groups of users including passenger car users and emergency vehicle travellers have been considered in this paper.…”