Création d'une application informatique permettant la planification de tournées pour le transport collectif d'une ASBL du secteur non marchand

Abstract

The “Centrale de Services à Domicile” of Huy, Liège, Waremme (CSD) is a non-profit organization which aims at helping people maintain their independence and a high quality of life. One service offered by this structure is to carry people to their non-urgent medical appointments. To achieve this mission, the CSD relies on volunteers, ambulance services or on its own fleet of vehicles which offer collective transport. As a result of demand growth and difficulties to cope with volunteers, this non-profit organization would like to increase the usage rate of its own fleet of vehicles. However, creating efficient rounds manually is very complex because lots of information has to be taken into account. In the literature, creating rounds to transport people is called a “Dial-a-ride Problem”. The aim of this project is to propose a computerized solution which will be able to find efficient rounds in a desirable amount of time. This computer program will also help managers taking decisions regarding future actions to undertake in order to make this service grown. To achieve this goal, we have to get first a deep understanding of how this service is delivered. This part will allow us to set proper parameters in our computer program. Then, we have to carry a literature review in order to find how to deal with dial-a-ride problems. Once a problem-solving method will be chosen, we will implement it in a computer program. We will demonstrate that the created computer program gives good results and we will be able to give some recommendations on actions to undertake in order to increase usage rate of collective transport. Do we have to open a new supply depot? What kind of vehicles do we have to use? How do we have to organize drivers’ schedules? However, due to the high complexity of this kind of problem and the number of people to carry via this collective transport, keeping a reasonable computation time was very difficult. So, up to now, only a good initial solution can be found. This computer program needs still some improvements in order to maybe find a better solution. Moreover, it is difficult to validate our conclusions by analyzing several working days. Indeed, gathering information at the CSD is currently not easy.