Heaps of the just-in-time (JIT) concepts have been successfully deployed in manufacturing industries for decades, and one of the important techniques among them is the mixed-model production planning. A mixed-model production line for manufacturing means that one single line is capable of making several different parts for a given period of time. However, the mixed-model production idea may also be helpful to solve the imbalance between service supply and passengers demand in urban bus operations. In this paper,an overview on the technique of mixed-model is provided, and moreover, several scheduling scenarios including mixed-model ones are planned. As a numerical demonstration, one typical exclusive bus lane in Taipei city is taken for analysis under the proposed scenarios. Benefits and limitations ofapplying the mixed-model scheduling in the dynamically changing environment of urban bus operations are discussed, and useful findings as well as some recommendations of this study are also given. For the covering abstract see ITRD E134653.
Abstract