Availability-based dynamic pricing on a round-trip carsharing service: an explorative analysis using agent-based simulation 

in Transportation Research Procedia (2019)

Carsharing companies aim to customize their service to increase fleet usage and revenues with different pricing schemes and offer types. Dynamic pricing policies can be designed to adjust and balance ... [more ▼]

Carsharing companies aim to customize their service to increase fleet usage and revenues with different pricing schemes and offer types. Dynamic pricing policies can be designed to adjust and balance temporally and spatially cars availability but may pose some question on customers’ fairness. In this paper, we propose an explorative analysis of how an availability-based dynamic pricing scheme impacts the demand and the supply performance. The policy is simulated in MATSim and compared to a fixed pricing policy scheme. This simulation consists of analyzing the behavior of a synthetic population of car-sharing members for Berlin and the surrounding region in which is applied an availability-based dynamic pricing in which price depends on vehicle availability in booking stations. Results show that when the dynamic pricing is applied there is a light decrease in the number of bookings and people with low value of time tend to abandon the carsharing mode in favor of other modes of transportation. [less ▲]

Incorporating trip chaining within online demand estimation

in Transportation Research. Part B, Methodological (2019)

Time-dependent Origin–Destination (OD) demand flows are fundamental inputs for Dy- namic Traffic Assignment (DTA) systems and real-time traffic management. This work in- troduces a novel state-space ... [more ▼]

Time-dependent Origin–Destination (OD) demand flows are fundamental inputs for Dy- namic Traffic Assignment (DTA) systems and real-time traffic management. This work in- troduces a novel state-space framework to estimate these demand flows in an online con- text. Specifically, we propose to explicitly include trip-chaining behavior within the state- space formulation, which is solved using the well-established Kalman Filtering technique. While existing works already consider structural information and recursive behavior within the online demand estimation problem, this information has been always considered at the OD level. In this study, we introduce this structural information by explicitly representing trip-chaining within the estimation framework. The advantage is twofold. First, all trips belonging to the same tour can be jointly calibrated. Second, given the estimation during a certain time interval, a prediction of the structural deviation over the whole day can be obtained without the need to run additional simulations. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated first on a toy network and then on a large real-world net- work. Results show that the model improves the prediction performance with respect to a conventional Kalman Filtering approach. We also show that, on the basis of the estimation of the morning commute, the model can be used to predict the evening commute without need of running additional simulations. [less ▲]

A Markov Chain Monte Carlo Approach for Estimating Daily Activity Patterns

Poster (2019, January)

Determining the purpose of trips brings is a fundamental information to evaluate travel demand during the day and to predict longer-term impacts on the population’s travel behavior. The concept of tours ... [more ▼]

Determining the purpose of trips brings is a fundamental information to evaluate travel demand during the day and to predict longer-term impacts on the population’s travel behavior. The concept of tours is the most suited to consider the value of a daily scheduling of individuals and travel interdependencies. However, the meticulous care required for both collecting data of high quality and interpret results of advanced demand models are frequently considered as major drawbacks. The objective of this study is to incorporate into a standard trip-based model some inherent concepts of activity-based models in order to enhance the representation of travel behavior. The main focus of this work is to infer, employing utility theory, the trip purpose of a population, at a zonal level. Making use of Markov Chain Monte Carlo, a set of parameters is estimated in order to retrieve tour-based primitives of the demand. The main advantage of this methodology is the low requirements in terms of data, as no individual information are used, and the good interpretation of the model. Estimated parameters of the priors set a utility-based probability function for departure time, which allows to have a dynamic overview of the demand. In order to account for the tour consistency of travel decisions, a duration constraint is added to the model. The proposed model is applied to the region of Luxembourg city and the results show the potential of the methodologies for dividing an observed demand based on the activity at destination. [less ▲]

A Big Data Demand Estimation Framework for Modelling of Urban Congested Networks

in CSUM 2018, AISC 879 proceedings (2019)

Incorporating trip chaining within online demand estimation

in Transportation Research Procedia (2019), 38

Time-dependent Origin–Destination (OD) demand flows are fundamental inputs for Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) systems and real-time traffic management. This work introduces a novel state-space framework ... [more ▼]

Time-dependent Origin–Destination (OD) demand flows are fundamental inputs for Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) systems and real-time traffic management. This work introduces a novel state-space framework to estimate these demand flows in an online context. Specifically, we propose to explicitly include trip-chaining behavior within the state-space formulation, which is solved using the well-established Kalman Filtering technique. While existing works already consider structural information and recursive behavior within the online demand estimation problem, this information has been always considered at the OD level. In this study, we introduce this structural information by explicitly representing trip-chaining within the estimation framework. The advantage is twofold. First, all trips belonging to the same tour can be jointly calibrated. Second, given the estimation during a certain time interval, a prediction of the structural deviation over the whole day can be obtained without the need to run additional simulations. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated first on a toy network and then on a large real-world network. Results show that the model improves the prediction performance with respect to a conventional Kalman Filtering approach. We also show that, on the basis of the estimation of the morning commute, the model can be used to predict the evening commute without need of running additional simulations. [less ▲]

Optimal dispatching of electric and hybrid buses subject to scheduling and charging constraints

Scientific Conference (2018, November)

We consider the problem of optimally determining the sequence of electric and hybrid buses departing from a multi-line bus terminal, considering both service constraints (schedule adherence) and energy ... [more ▼]

We consider the problem of optimally determining the sequence of electric and hybrid buses departing from a multi-line bus terminal, considering both service constraints (schedule adherence) and energy constraints (electric bus charging status, bus recharging scheduling in capacitated facilities). The problem is formulated as a Mixed Integer Linear Program, with the objective of minimizing the total operational cost for the bus lines in question. System dynamics are captured by practical sets of constraints, ranging from scheduling adherence to discharge- recharge dynamics. Individual operational costs at the bus level and at the trip level are fully parametrized, allowing for extensive sensitivity analysis. We investigate a real-life case study based on the city of Luxembourg, where two charging stations have been installed in the central station’s bus terminal. Experimental results show that, while full electrification is indeed possible, the required fleet size depends strongly on the given line(s) timetable. [less ▲]

Controllability of transportation networks

Scientific Conference (2018, September)

Incorporating activity duration and scheduling utility into equilibrium-based Dynamic Traffic Assignment

in Transportation Research. Part B, Methodological (2018)

This paper deals with the problem of jointly modelling activity scheduling and duration within a Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) problem framework. Although the last decades witnessed an intense effort ... [more ▼]

This paper deals with the problem of jointly modelling activity scheduling and duration within a Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) problem framework. Although the last decades witnessed an intense effort in developing utility-based departure time choice models, relatively little has been done for understanding how the different assumptions on the utility model affect the model outputs. This problem is the main focus of this paper, which evaluates the effect of explicitly incorporating activity scheduling and duration within a generic user equilibrium DTA formulation. While using utility functions to model the positive component of the utility is a quite common procedure, the object of this paper is to show that a generic utility-based framework behaves as trip-based, activity-based, tour-based, or schedule-based if specific assumptions are specified. By establishing a set of properties, we quantify the amount of utility lost due to traffic congestion and how this affects activity (re-)scheduling and duration decisions. This allows predicting the effect of using a different assumption on the evolution of the transport system – and more specifically the departure time choice model. Conclusions support the idea that, under specific conditions, complex user behaviour can be approximated through a simplified model, and that the ratio between utility at origin and destination can be used to identify systematic biases within an existing DTA model – such as anticipating the rush hour. We also propose a novel utility function suited for modelling different activities, which can be used for modelling activities with a different duration. The mathematical model used to evaluate the effect of scheduling and duration into the equilibrium-based Dynamic Traffic Assignment is a simple bottleneck model. While this model has been recently re-formulated in order to capture the interaction between morning/evening commute, this paper further generalizes it in order to account for all type of activities. [less ▲]

A holding control strategy for diverging bus lines

Scientific Conference (2018, July 24)

We introduce a holding criterion for network configurations with lines that operate jointly along a common corridor and then individually diverge. The proposed holding decision rule accounts for all ... [more ▼]

We introduce a holding criterion for network configurations with lines that operate jointly along a common corridor and then individually diverge. The proposed holding decision rule accounts for all different passengers groups in the overlapping segment and takes care of the transition to individual line operation. The holding rule is evaluated using simulation for different demand levels and segmentations and compared with other control schemes for a real-world network. Results show that gains in overall network performance as well as for specific passenger groups can be achieved under specific demand distributions. [less ▲]

Assessing the performance of coordinated predictive control strategies on urban-motorway networks

in IFAC-PapersOnLine (2018, July), 51(9), 285-290

Coordination and integration of different traffic control policies have been of considerable interest in research in the last decades and, recently, have been object of large scale implementation trials ... [more ▼]

Coordination and integration of different traffic control policies have been of considerable interest in research in the last decades and, recently, have been object of large scale implementation trials. In the setting of peri-urban motorway systems, coordination of various kinds of controllers must however be accompanied by accurate prediction of both propagation of flows and queues in the network, as well as the users’ response in terms of route choice. In this paper, we showcase through a real-life case study how coordination and prediction are both essential when performing hybrid urban-motorway control. Simulation results of a Model Predictive Control application are compared to simpler local control approaches, and the impact of coordinated intersection control and, additionally, Ramp Metering is evaluated. [less ▲]