Design and evaluation of transportation systems

Abstract

The paper presents the state-of-the-art in the fields of designing and evaluating complex transportation systems. Both components (design and evaluation) are presented as separate phases of a combined methodology and its major concepts and rules are described. Three alternative approaches to design/redesign of the transportation systems are presented, including: heuristic (intuitive - oriented) design supported by simulation, optimization (mathematical programming) - based design and hybrid approach based on the application of several combined procedures, including the 4-stage model. In the evaluation phase two major concepts are described, such as: Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and its variations and Multiple Criteria Analysis (MCA). The real life case study, focused on the heuristic redesign of the section of the transportation system, construction of alternative transportation solutions and their multiple criteria evaluation, is demonstrated.