00984586

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/1884-05

http://scholar.google.com...anov&publication_year=2004

Most paratransit agencies use a mix of different types of vehicles ranging from small sedans to large converted vans as a cost-effective way to meet the diverse travel needs and seating requirements of their clients. Currently, decisions on what types of vehicles and how many vehicles to use are mostly made by service managers on an ad hoc basis without much systematic analysis and optimization. The objective of this research is to address the underlying fleet size and mix problem and to develop a practical procedure that can be used to determine the optimal fleet mix for a given application. A real-life example illustrates the relationship between the performance of a paratransit service system and the size of its service vehicles. A heuristic procedure identifies the optimal fleet mix that maximizes the operating efficiency of a service system. A set of recommendations is offered for future research; the most important is the need to incorporate a life-cycle cost framework into the paratransit service planning process.

This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1884, Transit: Bus, Rural Public Transportation, and Paratransit.

00984581

English

p. 39-46

2004

Transportation Research Record

0309094798

Figures (7) ; References (10) ; Tables (2)

Case studies; Fleet management; Future; Heuristic methods; Life cycle costing; Optimization; Paratransit services; Performance; Recommendations; Research; Vehicle mix; Vehicle size

Finance; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Research

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 24 2005 12:00AM

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