Proposal for optimal placement platform of bikes using queueing networks

Abstract

In recent social experiments, rental motorbikes and rental bicycles have been arranged at nodes, and environments where users can ride these bikes have been improved. When people borrow bikes, they return them to nearby nodes. Some experiments have been conducted using the models of Hamachari of Yokohama, the Niigata Rental Cycle, and Bicing. However, from these experiments, the effectiveness of distributing bikes was unclear, and many models were discontinued midway. Thus, we need to consider whether these models are effectively designed to represent the distribution system. Therefore, we construct a model to arrange the nodes for distributing bikes using a queueing network. To adopt realistic values for our model, we use the Google Maps application program interface. Thus, we can easily obtain values of distance and transit time between nodes in various places in the world. Moreover, we apply the distribution of a population to a gravity model and we compute the effective transition probability for this queueing network. If the arrangement of the nodes and number of bikes at each node is known, we can precisely design the system. We illustrate our system using convenience stores as nodes and optimize the node configuration. As a result, we can optimize simultaneously the number of nodes, node places, and number of bikes for each node, and we can construct a base for a rental cycle business to use our system.

Optimal nodes placement using a closed BCMP queueing network

“…Sharing systems, such as bike rentals, represent an example of CQN application. For bicycle sharing systems implemented in various regions, such as the Velib program in France, optimization models are available to find the number of bicycles and charging stations (George and Xia (2011); Fan et al (2020); Chen et al (2020); Samet et al (2018)), while optimal node placement models (Mizuno et al (2016(Mizuno et al ( , 2019) are used to select appropriate nodes from a given number of bicycles and potential stations.…”

“…Although the BCMP is a mathematically sophisticated theory, its application is computationally expensive, especially for closed models. Previous studies have used queueing theory for optimization (Mizuno et al (2016(Mizuno et al ( , 2019), but only a few studies have made computationally intensive attempts (Mizuno (2022)), such as closed BCMP.…”

Limitations of Calculating Theoretical Solutions for Closed BCMP Queueing Networks and Verification of Alternative Theoretical Values by Parallel Simulation

“…Several studies have also proposed real-world applications of queuing [26], such as urban transportation networks [27] and theme parks [28], but on a larger scale. If the performance evaluation values for closed BCMP queues can be quickly calculated, it is possible to evaluate and optimize the performance using queueing networks for real-world models.…”

Optimization Strategies for Dockless Bike Sharing Systems via two Algorithms of Closed Queuing Networks

“…In this paper, we extend the computation of CQN by applying the MVA and FES algorithms. Further, some other important examples include Zhang et al [22], Fricker et al [23], Mizuno et al [24], Calafiore et al [25], Samet et al [26], Iglesias et al [27], and Vishkaei et al [28].…”