Improvement of Public Cab Transportation System through Computer Simulation

Aims: Public transportation is a dynamic problem which depends of different variables such as service schedules, route times, demand rates, and traffic density. Due to these features, mathematical modelling for improvement purposes is a difficult and complex task. Thus, computer simulation is proposed as a more comprehensive and efficient approach.

Study Design: A transportation case study is considered with the main feature variables. Data was obtained from a cab system within a town in Mexico. The reported problems consisted of economic losses due to low service level and cab utilization,

Methodology: The transportation problem consists of a cab system with four main routes which are served twice a day. Data associated to route times, demand rates, cab capacities, fleet size, service restrictions and fare costs was collected to develop a simulation model and analyze the current state of the real system. Once validated, an improvement approach was performed on the simulation model.

Results: The validated simulation model corroborated the problems reported by the case study. The proposals to improve performance, which consisted of reduction of cab fleet and route length led to reduce operative costs without affecting service level.

Conclusion: Simulation is an important tool to improve complex logistic systems which cannot be addressed by standard mathematical modelling.