title: Self-organization leads to supraoptimal performance in public transportation systems.
abstract: The performance of public transportation systems affects a large part of the population. Current theory assumes that passengers are served optimally when vehicles arrive at stations with regular intervals. In this paper, it is shown that self-organization can improve the performance of public transportation systems beyond the theoretical optimum by responding adaptively to local conditions. This is possible because of a "slower-is-faster" effect, where passengers wait more time at stations but total travel times are reduced. The proposed self-organizing method uses "antipheromones" to regulate headways, which are inspired by the stigmergy (communication via environment) of some ant colonies.
authors: Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación, Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, Distrito Federal, México. cgg@unam.mx
authors: Carlos
authors: C
authors: Gershenson
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D014186:Transportation