On dynamic demand responsive transport services with degree of dynamism

Abstract

The operation of a demand responsive transport service usually considers advanced and real-time requests. Previous studies focused on solution algorithms for routing and scheduling challenges of a pickup and delivery problem with time windows, but the operational issues of the overall system performance under a partially dynamic environment have not been investigated. In this article, we explore the operating efficiency of a dispatching system with a degree of dynamism (i.e. a ratio of dynamic requests). It is found that a dispatching system incurs higher transportation costs and accepts fewer requests when the request arrivals are partially dynamic, as compared to static or fully dynamic scenarios. Operational policies are derived for the dispatcher to avoid the inefficient range of degree of dynamism if future demand can be anticipated.