Evolutionary simulation for a public transit digital ecosystem: a case study

This paper presents an integrated simulation environment Connected Mobility Digital Ecosystem Simulation (CmdeSim) designed for testing and evaluating traffic planning and management systems using multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithm optimization and Bayesian network for bus network prediction. CmdeSim represents traffic data and flows in a local bus network and predicts bus service reliability. A graphical user interface (GUI) allows visualization of the simulation: including animation of vehicle movements on the map route. Simulation is an important element for assessing the performance of alternative designs and is a cost effective alternative to operational testing since it allows the analysis of the robustness of a design in a shorter time frame. CmdeSim, which is an simulation based evaluation, is an off-line tool for testing system designs before implementation and for studying the complex interactions among the components of the public transit system. The developed model in CmdeSim is used for simulation of different bus scenarios and strategies to identify their strengths and weaknesses for optimizing bus service reliability. CmdeSim describes how a public transit system is composed and this aids an understanding of the most important factors and actors that should be included in the Digital Ecosystem in order for Public Transit Operations in the system to be self-sustaining.