Evaluating the Impact of Spatio-Temporal Factors on Construction Heuristics for Transportation Services

In the dial-a-ride services, customers specify pickup and drop-off locations and their times for transport. The operator aims at constructing cheap itineraries while minimizing customer inconvenience. This problem has been studied as the Dial-a-Ride Problem (DARP), which consists of both spatial and temporal factors. This article studies the impact of spatial and temporal variation on multivehicle DARP using route construction heuristics. Our work highlights the impact of these variations on the customer disutility and transportation cost. The study will help the service operators in selecting an appropriate construction heuristic while expanding the DARP service in terms of service area, service duration, or planning for a sudden growth in the number of customers. The results show that if the operator is planning to expand the area of service, the Saving Heuristic is more appropriate for larger operators while Insertion Heuristic with spatial sorting scheme is better for smaller operators with limited number of vehicles. If the operator is expanding the service in terms of service duration, from 8 to 24 hours daily, for instance, or preparing for a growth in the number of customers, the Saving Heuristic is better for both smaller and larger service operators.