SPECIAL SESSION
Andrea D’Ariano
Optimization in public transport management
Recent research challenges are related to the development of new Decision Support Systems (DSSs) resulting from traffic forecast methods and their integration on intelligent traffic management systems.
A new research stream is to contribute toward the development of innovative dynamic traffic control methods for public transport systems. The current still modest level of punctuality and energy efficiency of public transport could be significantly increased by means of advanced decision support and dynamic customer information systems for rescheduling of public transport services in large interconnected networks and in case of strong disturbances. This would reduce the social and economic costs of traffic congestions and disruptions due to technical failures, adverse weather impacts, and lack of co-ordination between operators, infrastructure managers and customers. Specifically, this session deals with the development and assessment of optimization-based DSSs for improving real-time traffic management, with application to the management of busy airports and complex railway networks.