Coordinated transportation systems: An alternative approach to traditional independent systems

Public service agencies are servicing increasing numbers of clients as their operating funds continue to decrease. As a result, it is becoming more and more difficult for these agencies to maintain their effectiveness. This paper focuses upon shared transportation programs which is just one of the many cost-savings approaches public service agencies are beginning to implement. As alternatives to current transportation procedues, two coordinated transportation systems are presented, evaluated, and compared in a two agency-two vehicle system network scenario on the basis of total optimal vehicle route lengths. It is illustrated that significant cost savings can be achieved by coordinating transportation resources among local agencies. The main contributions of this paper are the two optimization models that will serve as benchmarks against which heuristic vehicle routing and scheduling models for coordinated transportation systems can be compared and tested. Such heuristics could then be incorporated into affordable software for use by local public service agencies.