Georgantas, Antonios (University of Cyprus), Timotheou, Stelios (University of Cyprus), Panayiotou, Christos (University of Cyprus)

School start time selection for the morning commute problem: A regional modeling and optimization approach

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "Transport planning" (FrAT9), Friday, September 27, 2024, 12:10−12:30, Salon 17

2024 IEEE 27th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), September 24- 27, 2024, Edmonton, Canada

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on October 14, 2024

Abstract

Urban traffic congestion during morning rush hour is a source of severe discomfort for commuters. Some commuters must make an intermediate stop at a school to drop off their children before heading to their destination. On the other hand, a different portion of commuters utilize the same network infrastructure to arrive at their destination directly. The fact that schools start at the same time implies that the school-oriented commuters depart from their homes almost simultaneously, significantly contributing to congestion. To address this issue, we propose a scheme that staggers the school start times such that the peak demand is redistributed. Our proposed method introduces a modeling framework for the regional and class-specific movement of vehicles, respectively, utilizing the Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram. The related problem is formulated as a bi-objective mixed integer nonlinear program that jointly minimizes i) the total time spent by all vehicles inside the network and ii) the overall delay observed between the initial and the staggered start time of each school located in the urban network. We develop a solution approach that combines the proposed staggered school schedules paradigm with different optimization solvers. Simulation experiments verify that for the examined network architecture, the developed approach can pinpoint school start times that can completely eliminate congestion.