Distributed Cooperative On-Demand Transportation

In current transport logistics, routing is usually performed centrally. This paper presents a novel approach introducing dynamic transfer nodes and a distributed decision process to redeploy transport objects. Thus, transportation vehicles, such as buses, operate autonomously and communicate among each other to optimise the redistribution of their current passengers. Because the system works without a central component it can easily be extended to fit specific transportation scenarios or the passenger penetration rate. The feasibility of this approach is evaluated utilizing a simulator which considers important aspects, including transfer times, passenger waiting and drive time, covered distance, etc. The experiments show promising results. On average the drive time for a passenger could be decreased by up to 10% and waiting times by more than 20%. In addition, the total covered distance is reduced compared to an approach where no transfer nodes are used.