Saturday, March 16, 2013

Innovation in the transportation



This is my last of a three part blog series on the topic of transportation.  Motivated by the Global Engineering Innovation Challenge, my friend and I brainstormed on what can be done to improve the road share in a limited right of way.



The goal is to pack a collection of objects, cars, buses, and bikes, into the minimum number of fixed-size bins, the road lanes. The resemblance between this and the classic bin packing problem is eminent.  In a bin packing problem one may pack based on first fit, or first best fit, based on ascending or descending ordered list of object based on its size.  Here we will be packing based on time of use.




The existing infrastructure of surface transport is sliced in at least three bins
            The side walks at least one on each side
            The roads at least one for each direction, North-South or East-West
Surface -> {Sidewalk, Road1, Road2}

The objects are bikes, cars, buses, and trucks
Items -> {Bikes, Cars, Buses, Trucks}

In solving this problem it is important to consider the time of the week day as the constraint to optimize.
Time -> {   06 < T < 10                   // demand is high because it is morning rush hour
               10 < T < 14                     // demand is low
               14 < T < 20                     // demand is high because it evening rush hour
               20 < T < 24                     // demand is low
            }


The solution is:

Time -> {   06 < T < 10                        Surface -> {Sidewalk        No constraint
                                                                             , Road1       Car-pool, Buses only
                                                                             , Road2  Car-pool, Buses only
                                                                     }

                10 < T < 14                        Surface -> {Sidewalk        No constraint
                                                                             , Road1     Bikes, Cars, Buses, Trucks
                                                                             , Road2  Cars, Buses, Trucks
                                                                      }
                           
               14 < T < 20                         Surface -> {Sidewalk        No constraint
                                                                             , Road1       Car-pool, Buses only
                                                                            , Road2  Car-pool, Buses only
                                                                     }
               20 < T < 24             Surface -> {Sidewalk        No constraint
                                                                , Road1     Bikes, Cars, Buses, Trucks
                                                                , Road2  Cars, Buses, Trucks
                                                                  }
            }



This proposal promotes better, safer sharing of the road by distributing the load of its usage through out the day.

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