Routing and Scheduling Dial-A-Ride Paratransit Vehicles
FirstWin (Functional Intelligent Routing and Scheduling Tools for Windows) is batch scheduling system developed by Dr. Lee Fu for dial-a-ride paratransit service systems. Built from the state-of-the-art academic research, FirstWin provides the power and flexibility needed by most service providers to model their unique service conditions and requirements and to solve large sized problems. FirstWin uses a standard Windows graphic user interface and employs an easy to use input and output management system... |
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FirstWin
Features
 | Model System Objectives Comprehensively |
FirstWin models the service provider's operation objectives and customers' satisfaction on the service provided in the same framework. The users can adjust the parameters to attain their specific service policies and requirements.
| upport a variety of O-D Travel Time Estimation Methods |
Origin-destination (O-D) travel time is one of the critical pieces of information required by a routing and scheduling process. It is one of the main factors influencing the solution quality and reliability of the resulting schedules. FirstWin is unique in modeling the O-D travel time in two aspects. First, it offers multiple choices of the O-D travel time estimation methods ranging from simple zone-based O-D travel time database to complicated Artificial Neural Network based method. Each estimation method features a different estimation quality and computational efficiency; and users can select one which is available and suitable for their specific situations. Second, FirstWin can explicitly consider the dynamic and stochastic nature of the O-D travel time, which is certainly the most realistic model in an urban traffic environment. The resulting schedules are therefore more reliable and productive.
| Offer a Variety of Automated Scheduling Functions |
FirstWin provides many automated scheduling options that facilitate the routing and scheduling process of diverse application situations. It can handle both advanced subscribed trips, reservation trips and real-time demand trips. In addition to scheduling regular single trips, FirstWin can also schedule trips which are grouped to be serviced by the same vehicle and trips which are assigned to specific vehicles by operators.
| Support Database Access via ODBC |
FirstWin imports data and exports results using the ODBC database engine which allows the user to work on the same database application they are using and therefore requires much less data preparation effort.
| Support OLE Automation |
FirstWin can be used as as an OLE Automation server and therefore can be easily integrated into another Windows application in a wide variety of development frameworks such as Visual Basic, Visual C++, PowerBuilder and others. Application developers can therefore add routing and scheduling capabilities to their applications.
System
Requirements
Hardware
| An IBM-compatible personal computer with an 80486, or higher processor (Pentium recommended) |
| 8 MB of RAM (16 MB or more recommended) |
| A Microsoft Mouse or any other compatible pointing device |
| An EGA, VGA, or compatible display (VGA or higher is recommended) |
| Networking hardware if database is accessed through LAN, WAN or Internet |
Software
| Microsoft Windows 95 or a Windows NT operating system |
| DBMS such as Microsoft Access and Oracle 7 and respective ODBC drivers |
| Networking software if database is accessed through LAN, WAN or Internet |