From: rkrayhawk@aol.com (RKRayhawk)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm
Subject: Re: project
Date: 29 Oct 1998 23:33:50 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
References: <3636332D.800FFE88@harborcom.net>
Message-Id: <19981029183350.00971.00000981@ng122.aol.com>


Schedule Transpotation in a Major Urban Area, such that at the macro level you
have maximum utilization of the infra-structure and maximum fuel efficiency of
transports, but at the same time, afford at the micro level to members of
family units a culturally acceptable schedule and afford to business units a
workable combination of workers and customer flow and material flow.

Of course, factor in constant shifting in the schedulable origins and
destinations, to reflect business supply decisions, employment association
changes and graduation through life cycle thresholds.

Assume a major urban center on the coast, with all forms of transportation.

Prove savings when compared to current patterns.

Augment the study if possible, with a projected routing engine that cognizes
accidents or congestion on roadways,  waterways and runways, and reassigns
plans to intelligent transport units.

Factor in maintenance of the infrastructure.

Factor in political features, like individula shut down the receivers
in transport units, or refusal to maintain them; or some business units or
families (to project degrees) refusal to co-operate.

Factor in weather, and acts of God.

Such an undertaking will give you a diversity of units to simulate or model,
and could involve reasonable scale-up factors, as befitting a Master's
Candidate.

Actually, you could even do a generalized study, just to prove where automated
scheduling could make a difference. And then focus on that.

Obviously a lot of work has been done on this kind of stuff.  But what is new
at this stage is the fact that extremely large simulations are now economical,
whereas prior master's candidates had lower horizons because of computation
duration or expense. And also very extensive interactive online schedulers are
now possible in urban areas, again because of the decrease in processor power,
but truthfully we have gained much experience with computers and communication
devices in automobiles recently.  As a student you face a world with more
portentional then prior students.  

So what I am suggesting is that a very pervasive scheduling culture is much
more reasonable to consider now.

It would be interesting to include incentive in such modelling.  If particular
schedules save the community a lot, assume a transfer system that rewards the
individual or business unit for accepting it. Project degrees of effectiveness
in these incentive transfers.










Robert Rayhawk
RKRayhawk@aol.com