Sustainable Transportation Planning

公路运输经济已被确定为温室气体(GHG)排放上升的主要原因。一方面，这是由于道路上的车辆流量不断增加。另一方面，绝大多数汽车仍然由传统的化石燃料提供动力。在过去的几年里，已经签署了许多国际协议，承诺各国政府减少温室气体排放趋势。因此，在地方和国家一级采取了几项战略，包括改善公共交通的性能，促进替代机动性和货运模式，以及采用非化石燃料车辆。 这项研究计划主要围绕两个主题展开。第一个项目致力于改善公共交通系统，重点是规划一种名为半灵活交通系统(STS)的新交通模式。STSS的目标是在定期安排的过境框架内提供对需求反应的服务。STSS结合了传统系统和按需系统的特点，需要极其复杂的计划活动。然而，在目前的方法中有相当大的差距，阻碍了这种系统的普遍成功实施。这项提议的第一个目标是通过改进STS规划方法来缩小这一差距，以应对实际规模的应用程序、数据不确定性和更合适的运营政策。 第二个主题考虑了使用替代燃料的车辆的挑战，并重点讨论了配备电池的车辆(BEV)的路线问题。BEV是由纯电动发动机和电池提供动力的车辆。目前，它们存在两个主要缺点：1)电池允许的行驶里程有限；2)充电基础设施稀疏且分布不均。这项提议的第二个目标是建立工具，高效地安排车辆路线上的电池充电操作，从而减少BEV行驶里程有限的影响。特别是，将解决几个现实生活中的情况，如充电设施的容量有限，充电速度和价格方面的现有差异，以及新的有前途的技术，如感应充电。 这一研究计划预计将刺激和促进道路运输经济向新模式和新技术的过渡，预计将为减少温室气体排放做出重大贡献。

The road-transportation economy has been identified as a major cause of the rise of Green-House Gas (GHG) emissions. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that vehicle traffic on roads is constantly increasing. On the other, the large majority of vehicles are still powered by traditional fossil fuels. In the last years, many international agreements have been signed, committing governments to decrease GHG emission trends. As a result, several strategies have been adopted at local and national levels, including improvements in the performance of public transit, the promotion of alternative mobility and freight distribution paradigms, and the adoption of non-fossil fueled vehicles. This research program is axed on two main themes. The first contributes to improving the public transit system by focusing on the planning of a new transit paradigm called Semi-flexible Transit System (STS). STSs aim to provide demand-responsive service within the framework of regularly-scheduled transit. Combining characteristics of traditional and on-demand systems, STSs require an extremely complex planning activity. There is a considerable gap, however, in the current methodology, preventing generalized successful implementations of such systems. The first objective of this proposal is to close such a gap by improving STS planning methods to cope with real-size applications, data uncertainty, and more suitable operational policies. The second theme considers the challenges of operating vehicles powered by alternative fuels, and focuses on routing problems for Battery Equipped Vehicles (BEVs). BEVs are vehicles powered by a pure electric engine and a battery. At the moment, they present two main drawbacks: 1) the battery allows a limited driving range and 2) the recharging infrastructure is sparse and unevenly distributed. The second objective of this proposal is to build tools to efficiently schedule battery-­recharging operations along vehicle routes, thus reducing the impact of BEVs limited driving range. In particular, several real-life situations will be addressed, such as the limited capacity of the recharging facilities, the existing differences in recharging speed and prices, as well as new promising technologies, such as Inductive Charging. This research program is expected to stimulate and facilitate the transition of the road-transportation economy towards new paradigms and technologies, with the anticipation of significantly contributing to the reduction of GHG emissions.