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DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2014.15

Shortest Path with Alternatives for Uniform Arrival Times: Algorithms and Experiments

Authors: Tim Nonner and Marco Laumanns

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 42, 14th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (2014)

Abstract

The Shortest Path with Alternatives (SPA) policy differs from classical shortest path routing in the following way: instead of providing an exact list of means of transportation to follow, this policy gives such a list for each stop, and the traveler is supposed to pick the first option from this list when waiting at some stop. First, we show that an optimal policy of this type can be computed in polynomial time for uniform arrival times under reasonable assumptions. A similar result was so far only known for Poisson arrival times, which are less realistic for frequency-based public transportation systems. Second, we experimentally evaluate such policies. In this context, our main finding is that SPA policies are surprisingly competitive compared to traditional shortest paths, and moreover yield a significant reduction of waiting times, and therefore improvement of user experience, compared to similar greedy approaches. Specifically, for roughly 25% of considered cases, we could decrease the expected waiting time by at least 20%. To run our experiments, we also describe a tool-chain to derive the necessary information from the popular GTFS-format, therefore allowing the application of SPA policies to a wide range of public transportation systems.

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Tim Nonner and Marco Laumanns. Shortest Path with Alternatives for Uniform Arrival Times: Algorithms and Experiments. In 14th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems. Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 42, pp. 15-24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2014)

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@InProceedings{nonner_et_al:OASIcs.ATMOS.2014.15,
  author =	{Nonner, Tim and Laumanns, Marco},
  title =	{{Shortest Path with Alternatives for Uniform Arrival Times: Algorithms and Experiments}},
  booktitle =	{14th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems},
  pages =	{15--24},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-939897-75-0},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2014},
  volume =	{42},
  editor =	{Funke, Stefan and Mihal\'{a}k, Mat\'{u}s},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2014.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-47494},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2014.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: Shortest Path, Stochastic Optimization, Public Transportation}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2012.97

Optimal Algorithms for Train Shunting and Relaxed List Update Problems

Authors: Tim Nonner and Alexander Souza

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 25, 12th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems (2012)

Abstract

This paper considers a Train Shunting problem which occurs in cargo train organizations: We have a locomotive travelling along a track segment and a collection of n cars, where each car has a source and a target. Whenever the train passes the source of a car, it needs to be added to the train, and on the target, the respective car needs to be removed. Any such operation at the end of the train incurs low shunting cost, but adding or removing truly in the interior requires a more complex shunting operation and thus yields high cost. The objective is to schedule the adding and removal of cars as to minimize the total cost. This problem can also be seen as a relaxed version of the well-known List Update problem, which may be of independent interest. We derive polynomial time algorithms for Train Shunting by reducing this problem to finding independent sets in bipartite graphs. This allows us to treat several variants of the problem in a generic way. Specifically, we obtain an algorithm with running time O(n^{5/2}) for the uniform case, where all low costs and all high costs are identical, respectively. Furthermore, for the non-uniform case we have running time of O(n^3). Both versions translate to a symmetric variant, where it is also allowed to add and remove cars at the front of the train at low cost. In addition, we formulate a dynamic program with running time O(n^4), which exploits the special structure of the graph. Although the running time is worse, it allows us to solve many extensions, e.g., prize-collection, economies of scale, and dependencies between consecutive stations.

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Tim Nonner and Alexander Souza. Optimal Algorithms for Train Shunting and Relaxed List Update Problems. In 12th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems. Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 25, pp. 97-107, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2012)

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@InProceedings{nonner_et_al:OASIcs.ATMOS.2012.97,
  author =	{Nonner, Tim and Souza, Alexander},
  title =	{{Optimal Algorithms for Train Shunting and Relaxed List Update Problems}},
  booktitle =	{12th Workshop on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems},
  pages =	{97--107},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-939897-45-3},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2012},
  volume =	{25},
  editor =	{Delling, Daniel and Liberti, Leo},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2012.97},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-37066},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.ATMOS.2012.97},
  annote =	{Keywords: Train shunting, optimal algorithm, independent set, dynamic programming}
}

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Documents authored by Nonner, Tim

Shortest Path with Alternatives for Uniform Arrival Times: Algorithms and Experiments

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Optimal Algorithms for Train Shunting and Relaxed List Update Problems

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