A decision support approach to the computerisation of some operational decision problems in community transport

Community Transport (CT) in the UK operates a diverse range of services, and organisations are computerising management and operational functions. This paper describes the approach which has been taken to computerising four operational decision making functions.

The paper considers models of human decision making and problem solving, with particular reference to an information processing view of cognitive activity and to perception and memory. The design of decision support systems is also discussed.

Four decision problems are considered. For each, the paper considers how people tackle the problem, how computers can be used to tackle it and the approach which has been adopted.

For allocating trips to vehicles using a diary, the approach has been to provide a representation on screen of a manual diary. For vehicle brokerage, vehicles are presented to the operator allocating a booking in an order based on the Sequence Number, an index of how ‘difficult to book’ a vehicle is, and the distance of the vehicle's base from the start point of the trip. For the sorting of passenger pick‐ups into an efficient tour, traditional solutions to the travelling salesperson problem have been rejected in favour of a solution using spacefilling curves. Finally, for allocating dial‐a‐ride passenger trips to vehicle shifts an approach has been chosen which presents the operator with appropriate information rather than attempting to automate the scheduling.

The paper concludes that the approach to the diary has been successful and accepted by operators, although the similar approach to the dial‐a‐ride scheduling has not, as the system has not yet been able to replace manual scheduling aids. The facility to order passenger pick‐ups is little used by operators. Finally, it is suggested that the vehicle brokerage problem may be an appropriate use of fuzzy logic.