- Promotor
- Co-promotor
- Co-promotor
- Date
- Friday 13 May 2022, 10:30 - 12:00
- Type
- PhD defence
- Space
- Senate Hall
- Building
- Erasmus Building
- Location
- Campus Woudestein
On 13 May 2022, R.N. van Lieshout will defend his PhD dissertation, entitled: ‘Integration, Decentralization and Self-Organization: Towards Better Public Transport’.
Dissertation in short:
Public transport brings undisputed benefits to modern-day societies. Aside from providing an affordable means to get around, its superior efficiency in comparison with private transport plays a crucial role in curbing congestion, pollution, and environmental impact. Given these advantages, adequate design and operation of public transport systems is of utmost importance.
The first part of this thesis seeks to improve the planning process of public transport operators by integrating planning steps that are traditionally performed sequentially. The first study considers a combination of line planning and vehicle scheduling, and presents methods that estimate how many vehicles are required to operate a line plan, without having to compute a timetable. The second study combines timetabling and vehicle scheduling, and develops a novel optimization model for jointly optimizing a periodic timetable and vehicle circulation schedule.
The second part of this thesis investigates decentralized strategies for operating public transport, with a focus on railway systems. Such strategies could be preferable over conventional centralized and schedule-based control in various scenarios. The first study in this part presents a theoretical analysis of a simple, decentralized strategy for dispatching vehicles. The second study considers the application of decentralized control to out-of-control situations in railways, which includes the development of a solution algorithm to find line plans that are suited for these circumstances. The final study in this thesis tests decentralized dispatching of both vehicles and crew in a microscopic railway simulation.
- More information
The public defence will begin exactly at 10.30 hrs. The doors will be closed once the public defence starts, latecomers may be able to watch on the screen outside. There is no possibility of entrance during the first part of the ceremony. Due to the solemn nature of the ceremony, we recommend that you do not take children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.
A live stream link has been provided to the candidate.