Bi-objective routing

[HazelAng1]

Hi, I have a project with the goal to route a new shuttle bus route based on demand for each bus stops.

This bus service will pick up passengers at a bus stop then proceed to a few other bus stops to drop them off. I have the number of people to be picked up and number of passengers dropping off at each bus stop. Now I need to provide a route based on two objectives:

1) shortest travel distance (to minimise operator's cost)

2) service quality (minimising the total in-vehicle travel time for passengers)

I am currently stuck as the Vehicle Routing Problem solver doesn't seem to be suitable. May I check if there's any other tools in ArcMap that can provide a bi-objective routing analysis?

[NeilAyres]

Isn't 1 == 2?

Maybe not but I am struggling to imagine an example.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Neil... I think is correct.  The first stop is the origin, the second is the destination...find the shortest/quickest route.  Now 2n stop is the origin and the 3rd is the destination...find the... etc etc.  Assuming the criteria between the origins and destinations remain the same. Or are you suggesting that you can alter these per OD pair?

[HazelAng1]

Hi Neil and Dan

The case is I have one single origin to pick up passengers and they are

heading towards different destinations. I want to find the best route that

accounts for cost from both travel distance and total travel time for the

passengers. Hence, ideally it should minimise the total time passengers

spent in the vehicle and the total distance of the route.

[NeilAyres]

Are you saying that option 1 isn't equal to option 2?

Scenario : Bus route through points 1 to 4.

2 people get on the bus at point 1 to go to 4.

At 3, 20 people get on the bus but they want to go back to 2.

So the "greater good" is that the bus turns around and returns to 2.

That's not a bus service that's a taxi....

[HazelAng1]

The scenario is more like:

Shortest route to stop at 5 bus stops are A>B>C>D>E

At A, 15 people board the bus. 7 people are dropping off at D, 3 at E, 3 at

C and 2 at B.

Hence, the bus would ideally go D>E>C-->B to reduce the total

in-vehicle time for the people although it could mean slightly longer

distance travelled by the bus.

[FreddieGibson]

I believe that the tutorial I've listed below solves an issue similar to this.

Exercise 8: Finding best routes to service paired orders

http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/desktop/latest/guide-books/extensions/network-analyst/exercise-8-findin...

The primary goal of the able exercise is to find the best routes for a fleet of vans to transport people to different hospitals for medical appointments. This exercise also implements a max transit time so that riders don't spend too much time in transit.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Yes but that is for a fleet of vans, in the original question the mode of transport is referred to in the singular.  Perhaps Hazel can clarify that point as to whether it was an omission or the reading of the question is correct

[FreddieGibson]

Yea...I would think that the solution would work the same for a single or multiple vehicles. The catch will be if Hazel knows exactly where these riders are going. If so, then ordered pairs can be created for the passengers to limit the time they're on the bus.

I would think that a Order Pair based VRP solution would be what is needed because Hazel needs to manage MaxTransitTime for each person or group of people on the vehicle.

[HazelAng1]

Hi Dan,

The main focus I have is getting the optimal route, regardless of whether it's a single bus or a fleet of vehicles.

Sorry about not phrasing my question more specific.