Paratransit services are those public or private transportation services characterized by the flexible routing and scheduling of relatively small vehicles (capacity 4 –12 persons) to provide shared occupancy, personalised transportation on demand.
Paratransit is a potentially attractive alternative to conventional transit, especially in remote, rural areas where population density is too sparse to be supported by the schedule based transit system.
The procedure that must be followed in order the system to operate efficiently is categorized into three phases:
The customer calls the system and books his travel.
The operator inserts the customer request into the system, executes the appropriate software which finds the best route for the customer with the minimum cost.
If the customer accepts the system’s proposal, the day of his travel the driver of the corresponding vehicle calls the customer ten minutes before his arrival in order the customer to be ready by the time the vehicle arrives.
The vehicle picks up the customer and deliver him to the selected destination point.
Our Paratransit system is a combination of four different modules. There
is a concentric rings concept that characterize the whole system. Each
layer is encapsulated by it’s superior layers. Each internal layer
functionality, supports it’s superior layers.
The communication Layer is used as the communication gateway between customers
and the operator. The Interface Layer is used as the main interface for
the operator and the administrator. Database Layers is used as a repository
of any kind of information is needed to run the system. The Core Layer
is the algorithm which is responsible to solve the real Dial & Ride
Problem.
The algorithm which is in use in the current system is a heuristic insertion algorithm. The solution produced by the proposed algorithm is not the optimum solution to the problem but it is close enough. There is much scientific research in this area, and we are working on that.
The possibilities for our paratransit system are explored in the showcases of Mount Pelion and Phiippi.
