title: Proposal for optimal placement platform of bikes using queueing networks.
abstract: In recent social experiments, rental motorbikes and rental bicycles have been arranged at nodes, and environments where users can ride these bikes have been improved. When people borrow bikes, they return them to nearby nodes. Some experiments have been conducted using the models of Hamachari of Yokohama, the Niigata Rental Cycle, and Bicing. However, from these experiments, the effectiveness of distributing bikes was unclear, and many models were discontinued midway. Thus, we need to consider whether these models are effectively designed to represent the distribution system. Therefore, we construct a model to arrange the nodes for distributing bikes using a queueing network. To adopt realistic values for our model, we use the Google Maps application program interface. Thus, we can easily obtain values of distance and transit time between nodes in various places in the world. Moreover, we apply the distribution of a population to a gravity model and we compute the effective transition probability for this queueing network. If the arrangement of the nodes and number of bikes at each node is known, we can precisely design the system. We illustrate our system using convenience stores as nodes and optimize the node configuration. As a result, we can optimize simultaneously the number of nodes, node places, and number of bikes for each node, and we can construct a base for a rental cycle business to use our system.
authors.affiliation: Shizuoka Institute of Science and Technology, 2200-2 Toyosawa, Fukuroi, Shizuoka 437-8555 Japan.
authors.forename: Shinya
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6030-3589
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mizuno
authors.affiliation: Regius Ltd., 3-34-50 Handayama, HIgashi-ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-3125 Japan.
authors.forename: Shogo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Iwamoto
authors.affiliation: Shizuoka University, 836 Ohya, Suruga-ku, Shizuoka, 422-8529 Japan.
authors.forename: Mutsumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Seki
authors.affiliation: Shizuoka University, 836 Ohya, Suruga-ku, Shizuoka, 422-8529 Japan.
authors.forename: Naokazu
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yamaki
keywords: Closed queueing network; Cloud computing; Gravity model; Optimization