Title: The traffic of school buses in the urban area of Tunis: modelling and simulating with meta-heuristic means

Authors: Harizi Riadh; Ben Hchaichi Toumi

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, College of Business, University of Bisha, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; GEFAA Laboratory, Higher Institute of Management of Tunis, University of Tunis, Tunisia ' GEFAA Laboratory, Higher Institute of Management of Tunis, University of Tunis, Tunisia

Abstract: We present a model for the capacity of an urban road infrastructure using data from the urban area of Tunis. A simulation, implemented using the C language and meta-heuristics is applied to school bus itineraries. We incorporated various factors to ensure the smooth operation of school bus traffic, such as the roads, bus travel times, the infrastructure, congestion, waiting times, the age of the vehicles and the availability of drivers. The results show the genetic algorithm to be more adept at resolving urban transport problems, with its superiority also manifesting in terms of a shorter resolution time and faster convergence to an optimal solution. This algorithm enabled a reduction in the number of buses needed and found the shortest path in the least simulation time. In addition to reducing operating costs, it also managed to ensure a transport network that provided an adequate quality of service with minimal journey times. Then, this improvement of the circuit of transport leads to lower bus running costs and it improves the living conditions of students and their social welfare.

Keywords: bus fleet; modelling; mobility; urban traffic; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKMTH.2018.099207

International Journal of Knowledge Management in Tourism and Hospitality, 2018 Vol.2 No.1, pp.12 - 33

Received: 06 Feb 2018
Accepted: 28 May 2018
Published online: 23 Apr 2019 *

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