ABSTRACT
Ostensibly when dealing with vehicle type, there is need for more operational details. Paying attention to details is similar to answering the following riddle. (Do so without using a calculator.) You are driving a bus from terminal a to terminal b. At the first stop, 10 people get on the bus and 2 get off. At the second stop, 12 get on and 7 get off. At the third stop, 5 people get on and 10 get off. At the fourth stop, 11 people get off and 1 gets on. You then arrive at terminal b. What is the name of the driver? (See end of this corner.)
The chapter consists of five sections, following the introduction. Section 9.2 describes an optimization framework for the vehicle-scheduling problem, in which categories of vehicle types are arranged in decreasing order of vehicle cost and comfort level. The assignment of vehicles to trips using DH (deadheading) and shifting procedures within the optimization framework is discussed in Section 9.3; the objective is to minimize the total purchasing cost. Section 9.4 presents two detailed examples (one of which is real life) of the optimization procedures developed. Section 9.5 provides basic tools for a determination of vehicle size, including a known square-root formula. Section 9.6 continues, more in depth, with the overview of the tools and formulation for vehicle-size determination. The chapter ends with exercises.
