The Gist-Line Concept in a DSS for Operational Planning at Public Transport Companies

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 1994

Authors

João Falcão e Cunha (Author) FEUP; Jorge Pinho de Sousa (Author) FEUP; Teresa Galvão Dias (Author) FEUP; José Luís Moura Borges (Author) FEUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: VII Latin-Ibero-American Conference on Operations Research and Systems Engineering

VII Latin-Ibero-American Conference

Other information

Resumo (PT): A new generation of Decision Support Systems (DSS) for Operational Planning at Public Transport Companies is now emerging that can take full benefit of the technological advances in new hardware, system software and optimization algorithms, in open architectures. In order to be accepted by Transport Companies, these new DSS must also be able to easily handle very complex and time evolving planning situations with existing limited resources. Our experience with several Companies in developing and deploying such a new generation DSS, the GIST system, has told us that it is necessary to offer the team of end-users simple, yet powerful, planning metaphors. GIST uses a simplified version of the gist-line concept for managing routes and timetables of all the required sorts. In a very general sense a gist-line is a concept inspired by the aggregated information that any particular customer has about the company and its service. Each traveler knows that there is a set of vehicle routes, each one with a timetable. Each route can have several variants or versions depending on the time of day, week or year. The gist-line is a generalization of the concept of route to include the possibilities of route composition that the planners have to deal with when facing the problems of scheduling vehicles, defining duties and roistering crews, given the public timetables and the existing company resources. The concept has proved to be both sufficiently general and also practical for all particular problems so far observed in real companies. In modeling the concept we have benefited from using the object-oriented design notions of aggregation, association and inheritance of the Object Modeling Technique (OMT), as it naturally leads into an implementable design.

Abstract (EN): A new generation of Decision Support Systems (DSS) for Operational Planning at Public Transport Companies is now emerging that can take full benefit of the technological advances in new hardware, system software and optimization algorithms, in open architectures. In order to be accepted by Transport Companies, these new DSS must also be able to easily handle very complex and time evolving planning situations with existing limited resources. Our experience with several Companies in developing and deploying such a new generation DSS, the GIST system, has told us that it is necessary to offer the team of end-users simple, yet powerful, planning metaphors. GIST uses a simplified version of the gist-line concept for managing routes and timetables of all the required sorts. In a very general sense a gist-line is a concept inspired by the aggregated information that any particular customer has about the company and its service. Each traveler knows that there is a set of vehicle routes, each one with a timetable. Each route can have several variants or versions depending on the time of day, week or year. The gist-line is a generalization of the concept of route to include the possibilities of route composition that the planners have to deal with when facing the problems of scheduling vehicles, defining duties and roistering crews, given the public timetables and the existing company resources. The concept has proved to be both sufficiently general and also practical for all particular problems so far observed in real companies. In modeling the concept we have benefited from using the object-oriented design notions of aggregation, association and inheritance of the Object Modeling Technique (OMT), as it naturally leads into an implementable design.

Language: Portuguese

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific