In this paper, we proposed a conflict-free routing strategy combined with scheduling for Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) multi-aircraft to guarantee a safe separation. By incorporating Standard Terminal Arrival Routes (STARs) as route constraints, a mixed-logic model is designed to maximize the runway throughput while ensuring minimum separation between aircraft and avoiding overtaking on each STARs segment. Control techniques such as speed recommendation and holding operations are employed to the model to address potential conflicts. Three different algorithms are developed to solve the model: branch and bound with mixed-integer linear programming, multi-agent pathfinding with constraint programming, and meta-heuristics with evolutionary neighborhood search. These algorithms are tested on multiple cases of varying scales. Finally, we demonstrate the advantages of the proposed three algorithms by simulating realistic scenarios and comparing the results with Singapore ADS-B (Automatic dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) historical dataset. In one hour testing, results show that our method could reduce the last aircraft landing time nearly 10 minutes and save more than 80 minutes for total flight travel times for all aircraft, as well as non-vectoring flight trajectories, which indicates its potential to be used as an auxiliary decision-making tool for Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs).

Due to the coupling characteristics of the physical system and the communication system, distribution network fault scenarios and post-disaster recovery procedures become more complicated in the aftermath of catastrophic natural disasters. Consideration of communication system restoration by unmanned aerial vehicle base station (UAV-BS) can effectively reduce distribution network outage duration. This paper proposes a post-disaster recovery strategy for distribution networks that takes UAV-based communication recovery into account. Consideration is given to the cooperation of multiple UAV-BSs in the recovery process using multi-agent reinforcement learning (MA-RL). The communication recovery procedure of multiple UAVs is initially converted into a Markov decision process (MDP). To actualize agent interaction, the distribution network reconfiguration model is constructed as a reinforcement learning environment that takes into account communication constraints. The problem is resolved by MA-RL, and the effectiveness of the proposed strategy is evaluated by IEEE 33-bus system.

Inherent uncertainties of the air transportation system (ATS) can induce unexpected anomalies in its operations such as deviations in flight schedules, sudden imbalances of demands and capacities, etc.. Current air traffic flow management (ATFM) models rarely consider both demand and capacity uncertainties in their algorithms, and generally focus on minimizing the flight delays under deterministic constraints. Thus, to bridge this gap, we propose a framework for en-route ATFM while scrutinizing uncertainties in en-route capacity and demand and their imbalance, via a chance constraint based probabilistic approach. The proposed framework plays a key role in ensuring the safety of the overall ATS in terms of maintaining the safety separation between flights and constraining the capacity of the sectors as well. Moreover, flight level assignments scheme is proposed based on the Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) of the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) with the objective of minimizing the fuel consumption. The model further minimizes the overall expected delay of the system using the control actions of ground holding, speed control, rerouting, and flight cancellations. At the implementation stage, two phases of ATFM as pre-tactical and tactical are considered, in which the former focuses on generating optimal trajectories and the latter focuses on real-time updates of flight plans. The computational complexity is reduced by shrinking the feasibility region and decomposing the problem into maximum weighted independent sets. The experimental results of realistic large-scale problems demonstrate the effectiveness and computational feasibility of our ATFM framework.

A multi-bus dispatching strategy is proposed for a ring-shaped road bus transport system, which allows dispatching single bus or multiple buses and incorporates volume dynamics on both buses and stations. Also, the passengers’ perceived waiting time is firstly formulated as one part of the cost function to take passengers’ anxiety into account, and thereby improving the bus quality of service of bus operations. At upstream stations, as many passengers as possible will board the bus, which leads to the less space remaining on the bus and thus the enlongated wait for passengers at downstream stations. With the aim to avoid such phenomenon, the bus boarding control is implemented in the passengers’ boarding process captured by a simultaneous loading model to provide boarding opportunities for the waiting passengers at downstream bus stations. The formulated problem is tackled in two different scenarios, i.e., either with a linear cost or with a nonlinear cost. The linear cost, incorporating the passengers’ actual waiting time and the bus utilization, is firstly converted into a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem, and is solved by the commercial solver Gurobi. With the computational complexity as a concern, two different evolutionary algorithms, Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Harmony Search algorithm (HS), are also adopted to solve the problem in real time. In Scenario 2, the nonlinear cost, integrating the passengers’ perceived waiting time and the bus utilization, is directly solved by both GA and HS. Finally, case studies are provided to illustrate the efficiency of our proposed strategy by comparing with the traditional bus schedule strategies, as well as analyzing the different impacts of the bus loading process when either passengers’ actual waiting time or passengers’ perceived waiting time are taken into account.

The continuing increase of the on-road private cars is contributing to a deterioration of the urban traffic system. Public transportation is widely used to tackle this issue due to its large ridership. In this paper, we propose a multi-bus dispatching strategy combined with the boarding and holding control (MBDBH) to improve bus utilization and further decrease the passenger excess delay. Dispatching adjustments and operation control are taken into account in the system. At the dispatching level, on the one hand, either a bus platoon or a single bus can be dispatched for each trip to provide adaptive bus capacity to match the highly-fluctuated stop demands, on the other hand, we adjust the bus dispatching time based on the existing timetable to minimize passenger excess waiting time to a large extent. Meanwhile, the operation level incorporates both holding strategy and boarding limit strategy to bring more flexible adjustments in improving bus service. Besides the efficiency, we also minimize the headway variation in order to maintain a high system reliability. The problem is formulated as a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINP) problem, which is solved by the commercial solver Gurobi. With the computational complexity as a concern, we propose a distributed algorithm to implement dual decomposition based on the partial Lagrangian relaxation. Finally, numerical examples are investigated to illustrate the significant time reduction of distributed algorithm and the efficiency of our proposed strategy: The proposed MBDBH model can reduce roughly 50% and 30% of remaining passenger volumes when compared with the timetable-based fixed schedule and the optimized single-bus dispatching schedule, respectively.

In order to efficiently balance the current and future air traffic demands with the system capacity, a proper Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) approach is required. The current focus of ATFM is generally on optimally utilizing the available airspace and airport capacities, while maintaining the required safety separation between aircraft. Yet, only a minor focus is given to the inherent uncertainty in the Air Transportation System (ATS), especially to its adverse effect on safety and day-to-day operations. To this end, we propose an ATFM framework scrutinizing the stochastic nature of ATS through a chance-constraint-based probabilistic approach. Moreover, anticipating the high volumes in air traffic in the future, we propose to split the model into two stages, in which the first stage scrutinizes the behavior of a set of flights as a flow, while the second stage transforms them into individual flight plans, enhancing scalability. The two models are formulated as an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) problem, and a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem at stages I and II, respectively. The NP-hard nature of the overall problem is minimized by transforming the problem into a Maximum Weighted Independent Set (MWIS) finding problem.

Conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles are one of the common safety issues at signalized intersections. Pedestrian Flashing GREEN (FG), a time interval for pedestrians on crosswalks to safely finish crossing before the next phase occurs, may fail to clear the crosswalk in the allotted time, due to significant pedestrian non-compliant behavior. In this manner, probability of pedestrian-vehicle exposures increases when non-compatible vehicle flows are released at the next immediate phase. This paper seeks to address this issue by presenting a traffic signal control strategy for urban traffic networks that aims to minimize vehicle traveling delay (increase efficiency) as well as pedestrian crossing risk (increase safety). First, a macroscopic model for pedestrian-vehicle mixed-flow networks is proposed. Considering the high-incidence rate of pedestrian violations during FG, an additional Dynamic All RED (DAR) phase is introduced at the end of each FG period, whose duration is adaptively adjusted according to the number of non-compliant pedestrians. With computational complexity being a concern for our model, an evolutionary algorithm with repairing mechanism (EARM), is proposed to solve our problem. Case studies are provided to illustrate the potential impact of the pedestrian movement to the vehicle traffic networks when pedestrian safety is considered in the system, as well as the efficacy of our traffic light control strategy for pedestrians and vehicles on risk reduction.

Demand uncertainty is one critical form of uncertainty which has an adverse effect on Air traffic flow management (ATFM). This is mainly due to the deviation in departure time and aircraft speed from their scheduled values. This may lead to the arrival of aircraft to certain routes at unscheduled times, causing an unexpected demand on those routes. The uncertainty of demand creates several difficulties in air transportation systems, including higher workloads for air traffic controllers, higher delays, travel costs, as well as safety risk. In this study, we propose a robust flight routing and scheduling scheme while considering both departure and speed uncertainty present in the air traffic network. Following robust optimization, we ensure that the capacity violations are eliminated from the system. The ATFM problem is formulated as a Mixed Integer Quadratic Programming (MIQP) problem with the objective of minimizing expected total delay of the system while maintaining required in-trail separation between aircraft even under uncertainty. In addition, we use an optimal flight level assignment method and speed assignment strategy to minimize the system delay and to fully utilize the system capacity. Furthermore, a greedy strategy with parallel computation is presented with the problem decomposed into a set of maximum independent sets to reduce the computational complexity in solving large-scale ATFM problems. With the experimental results, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the model.

This paper addresses a traffic signal scheduling (TSS) problem in a heterogeneous traffic network with signalized and non-signalized intersections. The objective is to minimize the total network-wise delay time of all vehicles within a given finite-time window. First, a novel model is proposed to describe a heterogeneous traffic network with signalized and non-signalized intersections. Second, five meta-heuristics are implemented to solve the TSS problem. Based on the problem characteristics, three local search operators and their ensemble are proposed. Then, five meta-heuristics with such an ensemble are proposed to solve the TSS problem. Third, experiments are carried out based on the real traffic data in the Jurong area of Singapore. The performance of the ensemble of local search operators is verified. Ten algorithms, including five meta-heuristics with and without the ensemble, are evaluated by solving 18 cases with different scales. Finally, the algorithm with the best performance is compared against the currently used traffic signal control strategies. The comparisons and discussions show the competitiveness of the proposed model and meta-heuristics.

This paper addresses a bi-objective urban traffic light scheduling problem (UTLSP), which requires minimizing both the total network-wise delay time of all vehicles and total delay time of all pedestrians within a given finite-time window. First, a centralized model is employed to describe the UTLSP, where the cost functions and constraints of the two objectives are presented. A non-domination strategy-based metric is used to compare and rank solutions based on the two objectives. Second, metaheuristics, such as harmony search (HS) and artificial bee colony (ABC), are implemented to solve the UTLSP. Based on the characteristics of the UTLSP, a local search operator is utilized to improve the search performance of the developed optimization algorithms. Finally, experiments are carried out based on the real traffic data in Jurong area of Singapore. The HS, ABC, and their variants with the local search operator are evaluated in 19 case studies with different scales and time windows. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind to solve bi-objective traffic light scheduling problems in the literature. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in dealing with bi-objective optimization in traffic light scheduling, they are compared to the classical non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGAII) with and without the local search operation. The comparisons indicate that our algorithms outperform the NSGAII algorithm with and without the local search operator for solving the UTLSP.

This paper presents a macroscopic model for pedestrian-vehicle mixed-flow network and a traffic signal scheduling strategy for both pedestrians and vehicles. We first propose a novel mathematical model of pedestrians crossing a junction. By combining a link-based vehicle network model, a traffic light scheduling problem is formulated with the aim to strike a good balance between pedestrians' needs and vehicle drivers' needs. The problem is first converted into a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem via a novel transformation procedure, which is solvable by several existing solvers, e.g., GUROBI. Then a meta-heuristic method called discrete harmony search (DHS) algorithm is also adopted to reduce the computational complexity in MILP. Numerical simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of our real-time traffic light scheduling strategy for pedestrians and vehicles, and the potential impact of the pedestrian movement to the vehicle traffic flows.

Efficient flight routing and scheduling play an important role in air traffic flow management, which aims to maximize the utilization of airport and enroute capacities to ensure safety and efficiency of air transportation. In this paper, we first propose a novel discrete-time flow dynamic model for an air traffic network, consisting of airports, waypoints, and air links, upon which we formulate an air flow routing and scheduling problem as an integer linear programming problem. Considering the NP-hard nature of the problem, we present a novel hierarchical flow routing and scheduling approach, where the hierarchical architecture is derived naturally from the network containment relationship, and computation is carried out in a bottom-up manner, which relies on an incremental strategy. On the resulting flow routes and schedules, a heuristic algorithm is carried out to determine flight plans for individual aircrafts. The effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical approach is illustrated by air traffic data in four flight information regions in the association of Southeast Asian nations.

In this paper, a novel centralized traffic network model is proposed to describe the urban traffic light scheduling problem (UTLSP) in a traffic network. The objective is to minimize the network-wise total delay time of all vehicles in a fixed time window. To overcome the potentially high computational complexity involved in UTLSP, an improved artificial bee colony (IABC) algorithm is proposed. A new solution generating strategy and three local search operators corresponding to different neighbourhood structures of UTLSP are proposed to improve the performance of IABC. Extensive computational experiments are carried out using sixteen instances with different problem-scales. The IABC with and without three local search operators are evaluated and compared. The comparisons and discussions show the competitiveness of IABC for solving UTLSP.

Air traffic flow management (ATFM) is an important component in an air traffic control system and has significant effects on the safety and efficiency of air transportation. In this paper, we propose a distributed ATFM strategy to minimize the airport departure and arrival schedule deviations. The scheduling problem is formulated based on an en-route air traffic system model consisting of air routes, waypoints, and airports. A cell transmission flow dynamic model is adopted to describe the system dynamics under safety related constraints, such as the capacities of air routes and airports, and the aircraft speed limits. Our ATFM problem is formulated as an integer quadratic programming problem. To overcome the computational complexity associated with this problem, we first solve a relaxed quadratic programming problem by a distributed approach based on Lagrangian relaxation. Then a heuristic forward-backward propagation algorithm is proposed to obtain the final integer solution. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheduling strategy.

This paper studies a large-scale urban traffic signal control problem (LUTSCP). A centralized model is developed for describing the LUTSCP in a scheduling framework. The objective is to minimize the total network-wise delay in a fixed time window. We have implemented a recently developed algorithm, so called Jaya, to solve the LUTSCP. The population initialization is based on the four stages of traffic signal in Singapore. A simple new solution generation strategy is proposed to improve the performance of the Jaya. A neighborhood search operator is proposed based on the characteristics of LUTSCP to improve the search performance in local search space. Experiments are carried out using the traffic signal data from Singapore traffic network. The performance of the new strategy for generating feasible solution and the neighborhood search operator are evaluated and discussed. The optimization results obtained by standard Jaya algorithm and its variants are compared to those by existing traffic signal control system. The comparisons and discussions verify that the Jaya algorithm and its variants are superior over the existing traffic light control. In future work, we will compare the performance of Jaya algorithm to existing intelligent algorithms in literature.

This paper researches on the flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP) with new job insertion. FJSP with new job insertion includes two phases: initializing schedules and rescheduling after new job(s) insertion. Initializing schedules is the standard FJSP problem while rescheduling is an FJSP with different job start time and different machine start time. The objective is to minimize maximum machine workload. A recently developed algorithm, so called Jaya, is employed to solve the FJSP with new job insertion and a discrete version of Jaya is proposed. Extensive computational experiments are carried out on eight real instances from remanufacturing enterprise. The discrete Jaya is compared to several existing heuristics and ensemble of them for FJSP with new job insertion. The results and comparisons verify that the discrete Jaya algorithm is superior over the existing methods. In future work, we will future improve the performance of discrete Jaya and compare it to more existing intelligent algorithms in literature.

Several major technical obstacles appear when moving toward more electric aircraft (MEA) architecture. First, there has been an increasing number of power electronic components used in aircraft power systems, leading to the modelling complexity. Second, the number of variables for system modelling increase significantly, leading to high computational complexity. To overcome these difficulties, this report proposes (1) a mathematical model of hybrid AC/DC electrical power systems for MEA architecture; and (2) a distributed power allocation and scheduling strategy based on the Lagrangian relaxation to reduce the computational complexity. Simulation results show that the distributed optimization approach is able to achieve good performance whilst reducing the computation complexity when the scale of an electrical power system increases.

Economic operation is a major concern for microgrids. Conventionally, economic dispatch of distributed generations (DGs) are solved by centralized control with optimization algorithms or distributed control with consensus algorithm. To improve the reliability, scalability and economy of microgrids, a fully decentralized economic power sharing strategy is proposed in this paper. The proposed method is based on frequency/incremental cost droop (f/IC) characteristics and incremental cost (IC) functions of DGs. ICs of DGs reach equality with the convergence of system frequency. Power dispatch of each DG is automatically achieved based on its relevant incremental cost function. Therefore, by using this method, the incremental cost of each DG will reach equality autonomously and the total operating cost can be optimized without any communication or central controllers. Simulation platform of an autonomous AC MG with three DGs is built in Matlab/Simulink to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

A method and a tool for simulation of a control system are presented. The tool allows integration of software components, electronics and mechanical devices into the same package and makes it possible to simulate the complete system accounting for all time-discretizations and physical delays in an accurate way. The software used for control of the virtual system is exactly the same as that used in the final product. The complete system can be prototyped in a virtual world, be tested and optimized long before a physical prototype is built.