Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Timetables'

A tendency seen for the last decades in many European railway networks is a growing demand for capacity. An increased number of operating trains has led to a delay sensitive system where it is hard to recover from delays, where even relatively small delays are easily propagating to other traffic. The overall aim of this thesis is to analyse the robustness of railway traffic timetables; why delays are propagating in the network and how the timetable design and dispatching strategies influence the delays. In this context we want to establish quantitative measures of timetable robustness. There is a need for measures that can be used by the timetable constructors. Measures that identify where and how to improve the robustness and thereby indicating how and where margin time should be inserted. It is also important that the measures can capture interdependencies between different trains. In this thesis we introduce the concept of critical points, which is a practical approach to identify robustness weaknesses in a timetable. In contrast to other measures, critical points can be used to identify specific locations in both time and space. The corresponding measure, Robustness in Critical Points (RCP) provides the timetable constructors with concrete suggestions for which trains that should be given more runtime or headway margin. The measure also identifies where the margin time should be allocated to achieve a higher robustness. In a case study we show that the delay propagation is highly related to the operational train dispatching. This study shows that the current prioritisation rule used in Sweden results in an economic inefficiency and therefore should be revised. This statement is further supported by RCP and the importance of giving the train dispatchers more flexibility to efficiently solve conflict situations.

This thesis examines the university timetable generation problem. It begins with a discussion on the conflicting terminology used and differentiates between the terms scheduling and timetabling. This discussion integrates with an overview of the problem itself both from practical and academic perspectives. This is followed by a summary of the apparently effective timetable solution generation algorithms. The literature is then examined in detail from that perspective. This literature review is then summarised in a form to highlight the use of these different solution algorithms. A classification schema is developed and the summary of the literature presented within the framework of this schema. Trends in the research literature result from this presentation and an extrapolation to future research trends are suggested. An information system based upon the need to support timetable production and maintenance is presented. Given the very practical outcomes expected of timetable research, the information system was designed to enable the whole range of administrative functions performed by teachers to be either directly supported or readily modified to prove such support. The implementation of this particular system is given and resulting timetables are presented and discussed. The system generated manual and automated timetables and these were produced by trailing a number of objective functions. It was noted that the determination of the optimal objective function is dominated by specific individual institutional criteria. It is suggested that this would make a more than significant project for future information systems research. From the literature it is noted that the timetable generation problem, as reported time and time again in the literature, has been solved. Such claims lead to a benchmark which is proposed to enable an initial comparison of the effectiveness of proposed solutions by different researchers. The thesis then presents a summary of the work that was carried out and offers direction for future research. It is noted that despite the fifty years of research conducted into this area there exists a significant number of research avenues still to be pursued.

This thesis examines the university timetable generation problem. It begins with a discussion on the conflicting terminology used and differentiates between the terms scheduling and timetabling. This discussion integrates with an overview of the problem itself both from practical and academic perspectives. This is followed by a summary of the apparently effective timetable solution generation algorithms. The literature is then examined in detail from that perspective. This literature review is then summarised in a form to highlight the use of these different solution algorithms. A classification schema is developed and the summary of the literature presented within the framework of this schema. Trends in the research literature result from this presentation and an extrapolation to future research trends are suggested. An information system based upon the need to support timetable production and maintenance is presented. Given the very practical outcomes expected of timetable research, the information system was designed to enable the whole range of administrative functions performed by teachers to be either directly supported or readily modified to prove such support. The implementation of this particular system is given and resulting timetables are presented and discussed. The system generated manual and automated timetables and these were produced by trailing a number of objective functions. It was noted that the determination of the optimal objective function is dominated by specific individual institutional criteria. It is suggested that this would make a more than significant project for future information systems research. From the literature it is noted that the timetable generation problem, as reported time and time again in the literature, has been solved. Such claims lead to a benchmark which is proposed to enable an initial comparison of the effectiveness of proposed solutions by different researchers. The thesis then presents a summary of the work that was carried out and offers direction for future research. It is noted that despite the fifty years of research conducted into this area there exists a significant number of research avenues still to be pursued.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Management
Full Text

In order to respond to growing interregional rail traffic, rail capacity should be allocated better. To achieve this, one possibility is to optimise suitability of departure times for rail passengers in the timetabling process. The suitability of departure and arrival times refers to how well the timetable can diminish constraints on passengers that must adapt their activities to train schedules. However, current knowledge on this issue is limited. Indeed, only few studies have quantified how passengers valuate departure time suitability. These studies are also quite brief in their coverage of the influence of travellers’ profiles on these valuations. In addition, current methods comparing the socioeconomic consequences of different timetables are not applicable in all contexts, and most of them rely on strong simplifications. In summary, this thesis aims to answer the following research questions:

What are the determinants for passenger valuations of departure time suitability? How to improve the welfare assessment of departure time shifts in interregional timetables? In paper 1, I focus on the first research question. To this end, we present a new study in which we estimate new valuations of departure time suitability. To achieve this, we conducted a stated-preference survey on several Swedish rail lines. We present the design of the survey and its result in the paper. With this work, I aim to fulfil two objectives: first, to provide figures to improve inputs for travel demand forecast models and socioeconomic assessments. Second, to determine the influence of trip characteristics and traveller’s socioeconomic profile on their valuations. In paper 2, I focus on the second research question. To this end, we present a method that enables calculating changes in welfare due to departure time shifts in any interregional timetable. In this method, we bridge schedule-based model forecasts with cost-benefit analysis framework. This enables a better approximation of consumer and producer surplus than in previous literature. In addition, we show the applicability and potential of our method on a case study covering a Swedish interregional line.
För att svara mot den växande interregionala järnvägstrafiken bör järnvägskapaciteten fördelas bättre. För att uppnå detta kan man i tidtabellsprocessen optimera lämpligheten för tågpassagerares avgångstid. Lämpligheten för avgångs- och ankomsttider avser tidtabellens förmåga att minska passagerarnas begränsningar när de måste anpassa sin verksamhet efter tågplanen. Men det finns en brist i aktuella kunskaper i denna fråga. Faktum är att endast få studier har kvantifierat hur passagerare värderar lämplighet för avgångstid. Dessa studier är också ganska översiktliga i sin beskrivning av hur resenärers profiler påverkar värderingarna. Dessutom är de nuvarande metoderna som jämför de socioekonomiska konsekvenserna av olika tidtabeller inte tillämpliga i alla sammanhang, och de flesta av dem förlitar sig på starka förenklingar. Sammanfattningsvis har denna avhandling syftat på att svara följande forskningsfrågor:  1. Vilka faktorer påverkar passagerares utvärdering av lämpligheten för avgångs- och ankomsttider?   2. Hur kan man förbättra utvärderingen av skillnader i välfärd av varierande avgångstider för interregionala tåg? I artikel 1 behandlar vi första forskningsfrågan. För detta ändamål presenterar vi en ny studie där vi analyserar nya värderingar av lämplighet för avgångstid. För att uppnå detta genomförde vi en stated-preference undersökning på tre svenska järnvägslinjer. Vi presenterar undersökningens utformning och dess resultat i uppsatsen. Med detta arbete syftar vi till att uppfylla två mål: för det första, att tillhandahålla siffror för att förbättra indata i prognosmodeller för reseefterfrågan och samhällsekonomiska bedömningar. För det andra, att bestämma påverkan av resans egenskaper och resenärers socioekonomiska profil på värderingarna. I artikel 2 behandlar vi den andra forskningsfrågan. För detta ändamål presenterar vi en metod som gör det möjligt att beräkna förändringen i välfärd på grund av förskjutningar i avgångstiderna i en interregional tidtabell. I den här metoden överbryggar vi kunskapen i schemalagda modeller med kostnadsnyttoanalysramen. Detta möjliggör en bättre uppskattning av konsument- och producentöverskott än i tidigare litteratur. Dessutom visar vi användbarheten av vår metod i en fallstudie som täcker en svensk interregional linje.


QC 20200423

The timetable is an essential part for the operations of railway traffic, and its quality is considered to have large impact on capacity utilization and reliability of the transport mode. The process of generating a timetable is most often a manual task with limited computer aid, and is known to be a complex planning problem due to inter-train dependencies. These inter-train dependencies makes it hard to manually generate feasible timetables, and also makes it hard to improve a given timetable as new conflicts and surprising effects easily can occur. As the demand for railway traffic is expected to continue grow, higher frequencies and more saturated timetables are required. However, in many European countries there is also an on-going public debate on the punctuality of the railway, which may worsen by increased capacity utilization. It is therefore also a need to increase the robustness of the services. This calls for increased precision of both the planning and the operation, which can be achieved with a higher degree of automation. The research in this thesis is aimed at improving the robustness of railway timetables by combining micro-simulation with mathematical optimization, two methods that today are used frequently by practitioners and researchers but rarely in combination. In this research a sequential approach based on simulating a given timetable and re-optimizing it to reduce the weighted sum of scheduled travel time and predicted average delay is proposed. The approach has generated promising results in simulation studies, in which it has been possible to substantially improve the punctuality and reduce the average delays by only increasing the advertised travel times slightly. Further, the results have also indicated a positive socio-economic benefit. This demonstrates the methods potential usefulness and motivates further research.
För järnvägen har tidtabellen en central roll, och dess kvalité har stor betydelse för kapacitet och tillförlitlighet. Processen att konstruera en tidtabell är ofta en uppgift som utförs manuellt med begränsat datorstöd och på grund av beroenden mellan enskilda tåg är det ofta ett tidskrävande och svårt arbete. Dessa tågberoenden gör det svårt att manuellt konstruera konfliktfria tidtabeller samtidigt som det också är svårt att manuellt förbättra en given tidtabell, vilket beror på att de är svårt att förutsäga vad effekten av en given ändring blir. Eftersom efterfrågan på järnväg fortsatt förväntas öka, finns det ett behov av att kunna köra fler tåg. Samtidigt pågår det redan i många europeiska länder en offentlig debatt om järnvägen punktlighet, vilken riskeras att försämras vid högre kapacitetsanvändning. Därför finns det även ett behov av att förbättra tidtabellernas robusthet, där robusthet syftar till en tidtabells möjlighet att stå emot och återhämta mindre förseningar. För att hantera denna målkonflikt kommer det behövas ökad precision vid både planering och drift, vilket kan uppnås med en högre grad av automation. Forskningen i denna avhandling syftar till att förbättra robustheten för tågtidtabeller genom att kombinera mikro-simulering med matematisk optimering, två metoder som redan används i hög grad av både yrkesverksamma trafikplanerare och forskare men som sällan kombineras. I den här avhandlingen förslås en sekventiell metod baserad på att simulera en given tidtabell och optimera den för att minska den viktade summan av planerad restid och predikterad medelförsening. Metoden har visat på lovande resultat i simuleringsstudier, där det har varit möjligt att uppnå en väsentligt bättre punktlighet och minskad medelförsening, genom att endast förlänga de planerade restiderna marginellt. Även förbättrad samhällsekonomisk nytta har observerats av att tillämpa den föreslagna metoden. Sammantaget visar detta metodens potentiella nytta och motiverar även fortsatt forskning.

QC 20191112

With increase in the use of railway transport, ensuring robustness in railway timetables has never been this important. In a dense railway timetable even a small disturbance can propagate easily and affect trains' arrival and departure times. In a robust timetable small delays are absorbed and knock-on effects are prevented effectively. The aim of this thesis is to study how optimization tools can support the generation of robust railway traffic timetables. We address two Train Timetabling Problems (TTP) and for both problems we apply Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) to solve them from network management perspectives. The first problem is how robustness in a given timetable can be assessed and ensured. To tackle this problem, a headway-based method is introduced. The proposed method is implemented in real timetables and evaluated from performance perspectives. Furthermore, the impact of the proposed method on capacity utilization, heterogeneity and the speed of trains, is monitored. Results show that the proposed method can improve robustness without imposing major changes in timetables. The second problem addressed in the thesis is how robustness can be assessed and maintained in a given timetable when allocating additional traffic and maintenance slots. Different insertion strategies are studied and their consequences on capacity utilization and on the properties of the timetables are analyzed. Two different insertion strategies are considered: i) simultaneous and ii) stepwise insertion. The results show that inserting the additional trains simultaneously usually results in generating more optimal solutions. However, solving this type of problem is computationally challenging. We also observed that the existing robustness metrics cannot capture the essential properties of having more robust timetables. Therefore we proposed measuring Channel Width, Channel Width Forward, Channel Width Behind and Track Switching. Furthermore, the experimental analysis of the applied MILP model shows that some cases are computationally hard to solve and there is a need to decrease the computation time. Hence several valid inequalities are developed and their effects on the computation time are analyzed. This thesis contains three papers which are appended. The results of this thesis are of special interests for railway traffic planners and it would support their working process. However, railway traffic operators and passengers also benefit from this study.

In this thesis the symptoms and underlying behaviour of congestion on railways are analysed and discussed. As well as in many other countries, Sweden faces increasing demand for transportation. To meet this new demand, railways play an important role. Today, the capacity of the Swedish rail network is not upgraded at the pace necessary to keep up with the increase in traffic demand. The sensitivity of the railway system rises as the capacity utilisation increases. At some point maximum capacity is reached when the marginal gain of operating one extra train is lower than the costs in terms of longer travel times and increased sensitivity to delays. Several different methodologies are employed in this thesis to analyse capacity. The first uses real data from the Swedish rail network, train operation and delays to analyse how different factors influence available capacity and train delays. Several useful key performance indicators are defined to describe capacity influencing properties of the infrastructure and the rail traffic. The rail network is divided into subsections for which the indicators have been estimated. This makes it possible to discern their different characteristics and identify potential weaknesses. The second approach employs the railway simulation tool RailSys in extensive simulation experiments. This methodology is used to analyse the characteristics of double-track operation. Simulation of several hundred scenarios are conducted to analyse the influence of traffic density, traffic heterogeneity, primary delays and inter-station distance on secondary delays, used timetable allowance and capacity. The analysis gives an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of railway operation on double-track lines. A simulation model for strategic capacity evaluation, TigerSim, is developed that can be used to speed up and improve capacity planning and evaluation of future infrastructure and timetables designs on double-track railway lines. For a given infrastructure and plan of operation, the model can be used to generate and simulate a larger number of timetables. This gives two major advantages: Using many timetables makes results general It is possible to consider both static and dynamic properties of the timetables in the capacity analysis The first aspect is especially useful in the evaluation of future scenarios as the timetable then often is unknown. The second is an advantage since an improvement in capacity can be measured in a combination of increased frequency of service, shorter travel time and reduced delays. The output of the model can either be used to directly determine capacity from a quality of service perspective, or used as input to cost-benefit analysis (CBA).

QC 20150902

The overall performance of a train schedule is measured in terms of the mean and variance of train lateness (reliability) as well as the travel time of individual trains. The concept is a critical performance measure for both urban and non-urban rail passenger services, as well as rail freight transportation. This thesis deals with the scheduling of trains on single track corridors, so as to minimise train trip times and maximise reliability of train arrival times. A method to quantify the amount of risk of delay associated with each train, each track segment, and the schedule as a whole, is put forward and used as the reliability component of the constrained optimisation model. As well as for schedule optimisation, the risk of delay model can be applied to the prioritisation of investment projects designed to improve timetable reliability. Comparisons can be made between track, terminal and rolling stock projects, in terms of their likely impact on timetable reliability. The thesis also describes a number of solution techniques for the scheduling problem. New lower bounds for the branch and bound technique are presented which allow solutions for reasonable size train scheduling problems to be determined efficiently. Three solution heuristic techniques are applied to the train scheduling problem, namely: a local search heuristic with an improved neighbourhood structure; genetic algorithms with an efficient string representation; and tabu search. Comparisons in terms of the number of calculations and solution quality are made between the heuristic and branch and bound techniques. The branch and bound technique with the best lower bound out performed genetic algorithms and tabu search for all except the largest size problems.

The examination scheduling problem is a difficult problem with NP-hard complexity and several methods for heuristically solving it have been developed over the past decades. This thesis investigates the casting of examination timetables with tabu search techniques, the combination of the move or transition recency based short-term memory and move frequency based longer-term memory and several tabu search variations such as solution restructuring, tabu relaxation, and alternating neighborhoods. By integrating the tabu techniques mentioned above, a multi-phase system OTTASYS has been implemented and tested on several sets of real data. It is shown here that the quality of the solutions obtained compare favourably with other published algorithms when presented with the same data. As the engine of the system, the algorithm OTTABU is proven powerful and productive and also can be used as a platform for further research.

In this study, the University Course Timetabling Problem (UCTP) has been investigated. This is a form of Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) and belongs to the NP-complete class. The nature of a such problem is highly descriptive, a solution therefore involves combining many aspects of the problem. Although various timetabling algorithms have been continuously developed for nearly half a century, a gap still exists between the theoretical and practical aspects of university timetabling. This research is aimed to narrow the gap. We created an agent-based model for solving the university course timetabling problem, where this model not only considers a set of essential constraints upon the teaching activities, but also a set of desirable constraints that correspond to real-world needs. The model also seeks to provide fair allocation of resources. The capabilities of agents are harnessed for the activities of decision making, collaboration, coordination and negotiation by embedding them within the protocol designs. The resulting set of university course timetables involve the participation of every element in the system, with each agent taking responsibility for organising of its own course timetable, cooperating together to resolve problems. There are two types of agents in the model; these are Year-Programme Agent and Rooms Agent. In this study, we have used four different principles for organising the interaction between the agents: First-In-First-Out & Sequential (FIFOSeq), First-In-First-Out & Interleaved (FIFOInt), Round-Robin & Sequential (RRSeq) and Round-Robin & Interleaved (RRInt). The problem formulation and data instances of the third track of the Second International Timetabling Competition (ITC-2007) have been used as benchmarks for validating these implemented timetables. The validated results not only compare the four principles with each other; but also compare them with other timetabling techniques used for ITC-2007. The four different principles were able to successfully schedule all lectures in different periods, with no instances of two lectures occupying the same room at the same time. The lectures belonging to the same curriculum or taught by the same teacher do not conflict. Every lecture has been assigned a teacher before scheduling. The capacity of every assigned room is greater than, or equal to, the number of students in that course. The lectures of each course have been spread across the minimum number of working days with more than 98 percent success, and for more than 75 percent of the lectures under the same curriculum, it has been possible to avoid isolated deliveries. We conclude that the RRInt principle gives the most consistent likelihood of ensuring that each YPA in the system gets the best and fairest chance to obtain its resources.

This dissertation investigates the influencing factors on timetable quality, not only from a data quality perspective, but also from an information quality perspective which takes into account the quality of the business processes involved in creating the timetable. The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University was used as a case study for assessing the quality of the timetable process, the quality of the source data, and the quality of the final timetable produced. A framework for managing the data quality during the timetabling process is proposed. The framework is based on reviews done on data quality management best practices and data quality aspects. Chapter 1 introduces the current Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University timetable, and motivates why data quality management is essential to its success. The scope and research objectives are presented for this dissertation. Chapter 2 covers a literature study on business process and data quality management best practices. The common thread through all the management methodologies investigated, was top management involvement and commitment to continuously improving the quality of data. Chapter 3 discusses various characteristics of data quality. Quality is determined to be whether the end result meets the quality requirements for which it was intended. Hence each system could have quality aspects that are unique to it. Chapter 4 explains various research designs and which were followed for this dissertation. The combination of literature studies, a questionnaire and a case study were used. Chapter 5 is a case study of the data quality and timetabling processes used at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and is based on the research design described in chapter 4. The current business processes followed in setting up the current timetable are presented, as well as the proposed timetabling process that should produce a better quality timetable for the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan 4 University. The data quality aspects most pertinent to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University are determined, being timeliness, accountability, integrity and consistency, as well as the most probable causes for bad timetable quality, like uniform technology, processes, ownership and using a common terminology. Chapter 6 presents a framework for managing timetable data quality at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University using an Information Product Map approach that will ensure a better quality timetable. Future research is also proposed. It is evident from this dissertation that data quality of source data as well as the quality of the business process involved is essential for producing a timetable that satisfies the requirements for which it was intended. The management framework proposed for the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University timetabling process can potentially be used at other institutions as well.

A construção de grades horárias dos cursos de uma universidade é um problema que deve ser enfrentado no início de todos os semestres e, por mobilizar quantidades significativas de recursos, se constitui numa das mais importantes tarefas administrativas de uma universidade. Trata-se de um problema clássico, combinatório, que tem atraído atenção por conta da dificuldade de se encontrar boas soluções. É classificado, em termos de complexidade computacional, como NP-hard, o que implica grande exigência de capacidade de processamento. É modelado de maneiras muito diversas, no intuito de se obter adequação quanto ao contexto educacional do país, às regras específicas da instituição ou aos objetivos específicos dos gestores, entre outros. Foi feita uma revisão de literatura no intuito de apoiar a modelagem do problema, nesse trabalho, e de contribuir com a comunidade de pesquisadores sobre o tema ao agregar informações a respeito das pesquisas publicadas até então. O problema é modelado, neste trabalho, por meio de técnicas de Pesquisa Operacional com o objetivo de produzir grades horárias com aulas distribuídas uniformemente ao longo da semana, em uma primeira etapa, para que, na etapa seguinte, ao se atribuir salas de aula às turmas, a utilização dos espaços físicos da Universidade seja otimizada. Dados foram coletados de uma instituição federal de ensino superior para a implementação do modelo. Resultados obtidos no processamento com os dados reais mostraram que o modelo reduz consideravelmente a utilização de salas de aula.
The timetabling construction for University courses is a problem that must be faced at each beginning of semester and, since it mobilizes significant amounts of resources, it constitutes in one of the most important administrative tasks in a University. It's a classic, combinatorial problem that has attracted attention due to its difficulty in finding good solutions. In terms of computational complexity, it's classified as NP-hard, which involves great processing capacity. It's modeled in a number of different ways, aimed to obtain adequacy to the educational context of the country, to the specific higher education institutional rules, or to the specific managers goals, amongst others. A literature review was performed, aimed to support, in this research, the problems modeling, and to contribute to the researchers community, adding the research information published so far. The problem is modeled, in this work, by means of Operations Research techniques, aiming to produce evenly distributed timetables along the week, in the first step, and to assign the classrooms to the groups of students in the next, in such a way that the physical spaces utilization of the University is optimized. Data was collected from a federal higher education institution in order to implement de model. Results obtained through its processing with this data showed that the model considerably reduces the classrooms utilization.

Mestrado em Métodos Quantitativos para a Decisão Económica e Empresarial
O presente trabalho tem como objetivo colmatar a necessidade de otimizar os horários dos alunos de licenciatura do ISEG, para que estes realizem o mínimo de deslocações de salas no mesmo dia. Assim, o desafio proposto consiste em resolver este problema utilizando o conhecimento adquirido ao longo do mestrado. Apesar de a Secretaria das Licenciaturas utilizar um programa para a elaboração dos horários das licenciaturas, o Bullet Education Scheduling and Timetabling, este não otimiza as deslocações dos alunos da mesma turma entre as várias salas de aula. Espera-se que a implementação computacional desenvolvida no âmbito do presente TFM auxilie a Secretaria das Licenciaturas na elaboração dos horários. Desta forma, a secretaria não necessitará de despender tempo a fazer alterações de salas, processo esse que atualmente é feito manualmente. Assim, será facilitado não só o trabalho da secretaria, como melhorado o dia-a-dia dos alunos e também o dos funcionários desta instituição. Através do Excel e de programação em VBA procede-se à leitura dos dados fornecidos pela Secretaria das Licenciaturas. Após a leitura dos dados, é aplicada uma Heurística de Trocas sobre os mesmos que permite a criação de horários de melhor qualidade, no que a deslocações dos alunos das várias licenciaturas do ISEG diz respeito. Assim, após a aplicação da heurística, obtêm-se alterações em 14 dos 79 horários analisados, sendo que o tempo de execução do programa comparado com o processo manual é relativamente baixo, demorando menos de cinco minutos.
This work aims at filling the need of optimize the timetables of ISEG?s bachelor students, so that students make less movements from room to room on the same day. Therefore, the challenge that was proposed to me consists in solving this issue using the knowledge acquired during the master. Although the bachelors' secretariat uses a program for the preparation of undergraduate timetables, the Bullet Education Scheduling and Timetabling (BEST), it does not optimize the movement of students of the same class between their successive classrooms. It is expected that the computational implementation developed in the scope of the present masters degree work will assist the secretariat in the preparation of the schedules. As a result, the secretariat will not need to spend time making room changes, a process that is currently done manually. Not only the work of the bachelor's degree secretariat, but also the day-to-day work of the students, staff and teachers of this institution will be improved. Through Excel and VBA programming, the data provided by the bachelor's degree secretariat is read. After reading the data, a heuristic is applied to produce timetables of better quality, regarding the movements of the undergraduate students of ISEG. After the application of the heuristic, we obtain changes in 14 of the 79 timetables analyzed, and the execution time of the program is significantly low, comparing with the manual process, taking less than five minutes.
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Scheduling trains is a hard problem where current solutions typically create timetables that create undesirable amounts of delay for the trains that use them. This study considers the fact that conventional timetables, which only use fixed intervals to schedule trains, might not be optimal for minimising the delay and travel time of passengers. In this study, we compare this ”simple” timetable with timetables generated via a fuzzy controller which has access to information about the flow of passengers throughout the day. The hypothesis is that this fuzzy controller therefore becomes more ”intelligent”. We evaluate the performance using a custom-built simulator that measures the average delay and travel time of the passengers. We conclude that the fuzzy controller can generate timetables that quickly adapt to passenger demands and show favourable resource usage over the simple timetable. However, more research is needed on the input variables and their usage within the fuzzy controller to further optimise the performance.
Schemaläggning av tåg är ett svårt problem och nuvarande lösningar skapar ofta tidtabeller med oönskade mängder förseningar. Den här rapporten behandlar faktumet att enkla tidtabeller, som enbart använder fasta intervaller för tågens avgång, kanske inte är optimala för att minimera antalet förseningar samt resenärers restid. Den här studien jämför enkla tidtabeller, med fasta intervall, med tidtabeller som skapats av en fuzzy controller som har tillgång till information om passagerarflödet. Hypotesen är att fuzzy controllern på så sätt blir mer intelligent. Rapporten utvärderar hur bra tidtabellerna presterar med hjälp av en simulator som mäter genomsnittlig försening och restid för passagerarna i simulationen. Slutsatsen som dras är att en fuzzy controller kan generera tidtabeller som kan anpassa sig till passagerarflödet samt att denna uppvisar gynnsam resursanvändning i jämförelse med den enkla tidtabellen. Dock framhävs behovet av ytterligare forskning på indatavariabler och dess användning inom fuzzy controllern för att vidare kunna optimera dess prestanda.

The aim of this thesis is to design a software for elementary, middle and high schools, which will serve to create alternative timetables for staff substitutions. There are similarly oriented programs, but most schools don't use them. These programs contain many flaws, which are also discussed in this work. Creating substitution schedules is complicated, and a lot of conditions must be taken care of. Checking of all the conditions should be the main advantage of the application. Design and implementation of the application is based on requirements by a school, where substitution timetables are produced manually. Great emphasis is placed on user friendliness and ease of use.

Millions of people use public transport systems everywhere in the world, while the number of smartphones connected to the Internet is dramatically increasing. The aim of this thesis is to study, design, and prototype a system to collect data from the mobile devices of regular public transport users and analyse them in order to provide useful information to travellers all over the world. To study the feasibility of this project at a large scale, data will be created to simulate what will be collected via mobile phone applications. The main objective of this paper is to study the effect of data mining techniques on mapping original transport routes with associated timetables.
Crowdsourcing av kollektivtrafikdata via direkt mobilspårning. Miljontals personer använder kollektivtrafik överallt i världen och antalet smartphones med internetanslutning stiger dagligen. Avsikten med den här avhandlingen är att undersöka, skapa och testa ett system som samlar och analyserar data från mobiltelefoner av kollektivtrafikanvändare så att användbar information kan bli tillgänglig till resande världen över. För att generellt undersöka möjligheten med ett sådant projekt kommer data att skapas för att simulera informationen som är tänkt att senare samlas från resandes mobiletelefoner. Huvudsyftet med den här avhandlingen är att undersöka data mining effekter i kartläggningen av ursprungliga transportsträckor och dess tidtabeller.

Timetable development and design is a complex process that is crucial for safe and efficient railway operations. The combination of steel wheels and steel rails makes it possible to create trains and to transport many vehicles, thus passengers and freight, at the same time, but it also results in longer braking distances. These braking distances often exceed sight distance, which means that sufficient distance between trains must be maintained. This requires a thorough planning of train movements in order to prevent conflicting train paths and trains stopping for red signals. This is done by creating a time schedule for different train paths along the track, the so-called timetable. The timetable forms the backbone of railway operations, because a timetable informs a passenger when a train departs and arrives. However, in order to attract passengers, the timetable should be aligned with customer demand. Unfortunately, railway operation tends to deal with great demand variations over time and within the network. In order to make clear how passenger demand is distributed, the demand is often expressed in an origin-destination matrix. Each cell of the matrix corresponds to the number of expected passengers between an origin and destination. Based upon the demand distribution, a line design is created. A line design determines the route of a train, and consists of a stopping pattern and frequency per train. Although the line plan is important for the timetabling process, an optimal line plan does not automatically result in an optimal or feasible timetable. In the past, timetable design focused on a minimisation of the total travel time in conflict-free timetables only. Nevertheless, several studies confirmed the need for periodic and symmetric timetables that come with equal levels of service throughout the day, which are easily memorisable for the passenger. These timetables must be robust, so that a high punctuality can be achieved. Additionally, an ideal timetable also takes into account factors like in-vehicle time, waiting time and number of transfers, summarised in the perceived travel time (PTT). It is, however, impossible to include all these elements in a manual timetable design. This emphasises the need for a timetabling model that combines passenger demand and line design to calculate a timetable with a minimal PTT. Several different timetable models have been developed in the past, where each model has its own area of focus. Some models focus on the optimisation of line plans, so that the line design connects most important origin-destination pairs and travel time between these pairs is minimised. However, these models do not take into account specific arrival and departure times. It might thus be that the travel time will be high for passengers that have to change trains. Other models focus on the development of conflict-free timetables, in which the infrastructure governs the timetable. Although this might result in a feasible timetable, it may not always be an optimal timetable since passenger demand is often not included. The final category of timetabling models focuses on the improvement of passenger satisfaction. These models minimise waiting time or the total journey time for instance. Nevertheless, the resistance to change trains is usually high, but often not included in the calculation. In contrary to other timetabling models, the Strategic Passenger Oriented Timetabling (SPOT) model, developed by Polinder (2020) and NS, is able to create a timetable with a minimal PTT. However, the model is currently not used within the timetable development process. Therefore, this research has investigated to what extent the SPOT model can be used in this process, and hence support and speed up the design of new timetables. The SPOT model includes the resistance to change trains in the calculation of the PTT. In the model it is assumed that each minute of in-vehicle time counts as 1 passenger-minute, each minute of waiting time corresponds to 2 passenger-minutes, and each transfer is awarded with a penalty of 20 passenger-minutes. A lower PTT is thus achieved through an optimisation of waiting times and transfer penalties. It means that the model can especially be used for determining arrival and departure times at transfer nodes. Despite the fact that the model is unable to include infrastructural limitations, the results are useful for determining which transfer possibilities are important at each node. In order to validate this hypothesis, two case studies have been performed for the transfernodes Weesp and Zwolle. These cases have been selected based upon recent problems during the development of post-COVID-19 timetable scenarios for NS. For each casestudy, several elements of the current timetable and proposed scenarios have been included in the input of the model, in order to analyse the effect on the timetable at the specific node. The output of the model, consisting of the PTT, improvement potentials for origin-destination pairs and dwell-time graphs, provided a clear overview of how each experiment scored. In the end, this study concludes that the SPOT model is especially applicable for studies in which different timetable scenarios must be compared with each other. It can help to illustrate the impact of decisions and trade-offs, so that different ideas on timetable design can be assessed before making specific, conflict-free timetables. The model can thus be used in the stage of exploratory research.
Tidtabellsutveckling är en komplex process som är avgörande för en säker och effektiv järnvägsdrift. Kombinationen av stålhjul och stålräl gör det möjligt att skapa tåg och transportera många vagnar, med passagerare eller gods, samtidigt, men det leder också till längre bromssträckor. Dessa bromssträckor överskrider ofta siktavståndet, vilket innebär att tillräckligt avstånd mellan tågen måste bibehållas. Detta kräver en grundlig planering av tågrörelser för att förhindra motstridiga tågvägar. Detta görs genom att skapa ett tidsschema för olika tåg längs spåret, den så kallade tidtabellen. Tidtabellen utgör ryggraden i järnvägsverksamheten, eftersom en tidtabell informerar en passagerare när ett tåg avgår och anländer. För att attrahera passagerare bör tidtabellen dock anpassas till kundernas efterfrågan. Tyvärr tenderar järnvägsoperationer att hantera stora efterfrågevariationer över tid och inom nätverket. För att klargöra hur passagerarefterfrågan fördelas uttrycks efterfrågan ofta i en matris för ursprungsdestination. Varje cell i matrisen motsvarar antalet förväntade passagerare mellan ett ursprung och en destination. Baserat på efterfrågefördelningen skapas ett linjeupplägg. Ett linjeupplägg bestämmer tågets rutt och består av ett stoppmönster och frekvens per tåg. Även om linjeplanen är viktig för tidtabellprocessen, resulterar ett optimalt linjeupplägg inte automatiskt i en optimal eller genomförbar tidtabell. Tidigare fokuserade tidtabellsutformningen på att minimera den totala restiden endast i konfliktfria tidtabeller. Ändå har flera studier bekräftat behovet av periodiska och symmetriska tidtabeller som har samma servicenivåer hela dagen och som är lätta att minnas för passageraren. Dessa tidtabeller måste vara robusta så att en hög punktlighet kan uppnås. Dessutom tar en ideal tidtabell också hänsyn till faktorer som fordonstid, väntetid och antal byten, sammanfattade i den upplevda restiden (PTT). Det är dock omöjligt att inkludera alla dessa element i en manuell tidtabellsplanering. Detta betonar behovet av en tidtabellsmodell som kombinerar passagerares efterfrågan och linjeupplägg för att beräkna en tidtabell med minimal PTT. Flera olika tidtabellmodeller har utvecklats tidigare, där varje modell har sitt eget fokusområde. Vissa modeller fokuserar på optimering av linjeplaner, så att linjeupplägget ansluter de viktigaste ursprung-destinationsparen och att restiden mellan dessa par minimeras. Dessa modeller tar dock inte hänsyn till specifika ankomst- och avgångstider. Det kan alltså vara så att restiden blir hög för passagerare som måste byta tåg. Andra modeller fokuserar på utvecklingen av konfliktfria tidtabeller, där infrastrukturen styr tidtabellen. Även om detta kan resultera i en genomförbar tidtabell, kanske det inte alltid är en optimal tidtabell eftersom passagerarefterfrågan ofta inte ingår. Den sista kategorin av tidtabellmodeller fokuserar på förbättring av passagerarnöjdheten. Dessa modeller minimerar till exempel väntetiden eller den totala restiden. Ändå är motståndet mot tågbyte ofta högt, men ingår inte i beräkningen. I motsats till andra tidsplaneringsmodeller kan SPOT-modellen, utvecklad av Polinder (2020) och NS (den största persontågsoperatören i Nederländerna), skapa en tidtabell med minimal PTT. I denna beräkning ingår motståndet mot byte av tåg. I modellen antas att varje minut i fordonstiden räknas som 1 passagerarminut, varje minut väntetid motsvarar 2 passagerarminuter och varje byte tilldelas ett straff på 20 passagerarminuter. En lägre PTT uppnås således genom en optimering av väntetider och överföringsstraff. Det betyder att modellen särskilt kan användas för att bestämma ankomst- och avgångstider vid överföringsnoder. Trots det faktum att modellen inte kan inkludera infrastrukturella begränsningar är resultaten användbara för att bestämma vilka bytesmöjligheter som är viktiga vid varje nod. För att validera denna hypotes har två fallstudier utförts för bytesnoderna Weesp och Zwolle. Dessa fall har valts ut baserat på de senaste problemen under utvecklingen av tidtabellsscenarier efter COVID-19 för NS. För varje fallstudie har flera delar av den aktuella tidtabellen och föreslagna scenarier inkluderats som indata till modellen för att analysera effekten på tidtabellen vid den specifika noden. Utdata fran modellen, bestående av PTT, förbättringspotentialer för par ursrungs- och detinationspar och grafer för uppehållstid gav en tydlig översikt över resultatet från varje experiment. Slutligen drar denna studie slutsatsen att SPOT-modellen är särskilt användbar för studier där olika tidtabeller måste jämföras med varandra. Den kan hjälpa till att visa effekterna av beslut och kompromisser, så att olika idéer om tidtabellsupplägg kan utvärderas innan man gör specifika, konfliktfria tidtabeller. Modellen kan alltså användas i ett tidigt skede.
Het ontwikkelen en ontwerpen van dienstregelingen is een complex proces dat cruciaal is voor een veilig en efficiënt vervoer per spoor. De combinatie van stalen wielen op stalen spoorstaven zorgt ervoor dat het mogelijk is om meerdere voertuigen te combineren en treinen samen te stellen, en zodoende veel reizigers of goederen op hetzelfde moment te verplaatsen. Echter, de combinatie van staal op staal zorgt ook voor lange remwegen. Doordat deze remwegen de zichtafstand vaak overschrijden, moet er gewaarborgd worden dat treinen altijd op voldoende afstand van elkaar rijden. Hiervoor is een strakke en uitvoerige planning benodigd, waardoor conflicten worden voorkomen en treinen niet voor een rood sein tot stilstand komen. Deze planning definieert voor elke trein het tijdspad over een bepaald traject, de zogenaamde dienstregeling. De dienstregeling vormt de ruggengraat van de treindienst, onder andere omdat deze de reizigers informeert wanneer een trein vertrekt en aankomt. Echter, om reizigers te werven is het belangrijk dat de dienstregeling overeenkomt met datgene wat de reiziger wil. Het nadeel is dat vervoer per spoor vaak te maken heeft met een variërende vraag. Om inzicht te geven hoe deze reizigersvraag zich verhoudt tot het netwerk, wordt de reizigersvraag vaak uitgedrukt in een herkomst-bestemmingsmatrix. Elke cel in de matrix correspondeert met het aantal verwachte reizigers tussen een specifieke vertrek- en aankomstlocatie. Op basis van de verdeling van de reizigersvraag wordt vervolgens een lijnvoeringsontwerp gemaakt. De lijnvoering bepaalt de route, frequentie en het stoppatroon van een trein. Hoewel een lijnvoering belangrijk is in het ontwerpproces, garandeert een optimale lijnvoering niet automatisch een optimale dienstregeling. In het verleden werd er bij het maken van het dienstregelingsontwerp vooral gefocust op het minimaliseren van de pure reistijd binnen een conflictvrije dienstregeling. Meerdere studies hebben echter aangetoond dat de reiziger vooral behoefte heeft aan een repeterende en symmetrische dienstregeling, waarbij de reiziger de dienstregeling eenvoudig kan onthouden en de reiskwaliteit constant is. Deze dienstregeling moet robuust zijn, zodat een hoge punctualiteitsgraad behaald kan worden. Bovendien richt het ontwerp zich niet enkel op het minimaliseren van de pure reistijd, maar wordt er gekeken naar het totaalplaatje van in-treintijd, wachttijd en aantal keer overstappen. Dit is de zogenaamde gegeneraliseerde reistijd (GRT). In een handmatig ontworpen dienstregeling is het onmogelijk om al deze factoren in acht te nemen. Er is dan ook behoefte aan een dienstregelingsmodel dat reizigersvraag en lijnvoering combineert, zodat een ontwerp gemaakt kan worden waarbij de GRT wordt geminimaliseerd. Door de jaren heen zijn er diverse modellen ontwikkeld, waarbij de meeste modellen zich richten op een specifiek onderdeel van het dienstregelingsprobleem. Sommige modellen hebben als doel om de lijnvoering te optimaliseren, zodat het ontwerp altijd de belangrijkste herkomsten en bestemmingen met elkaar verbindt. Een nadeel is dat op dit niveau er nog geen specifiek vertrek- en aankomsttijden bepaald kunnen worden, waardoor uiteindelijk de reistijd enorm kan toenemen voor reizigers die moeten overstappen. Andere modellen focussen juist op het genereren van conflictvrije dienstregelingen, waarbij de aanwezige infrastructuur leidend is voor de dienstregeling. Hoewel dit de uitvoerbaarheid van de dienstregeling garandeert, is dit veelal niet de meest wenselijke dienstregeling omdat de reizigersvraag hierin niet wordt meegenomen. Tenslotte zijn er modellen die de klantbeleving proberen te verbeteren door bijvoorbeeld de totale wacht- of reistijd te minimaliseren. Desalniettemin is hierin de weerstand om over te stappen vaak niet inbegrepen, terwijl dit wel van grote invloed kan zijn. In tegenstelling tot andere modellen is het door Polinder (2020) en NS ontwikkelde SPOTmodel in staat om een dienstregeling te berekenen met een minimale GRT en dus tot een beter ontwerpvoorstel te komen. Echter, het SPOT model wordt momenteel nog niet gebruikt in het daadwerkelijke dienstregelingsontwerpproces. Dit onderzoek richt zich daarom op de vraag in hoeverre het SPOT model kan worden gebruikt bij het ontwerpen van nieuwe dienstregelingen, en zodoende het proces te ondersteunen en te versnellen. In de berekening van de GRT is de weerstand om over te stappen inbegrepen. In het model wordt aangenomen dat elke minuut aan in-treintijd telt voor 1 reizigersminuut, elke minuut aan wachttijd telt voor 2 reizigersminuten, en er voor elke overstap een boete van 20 reizigersminuten wordt opgelegd. Een lagere GRT wordt dus behaald bij het optimaliseren van de wachttijd en het aantal overstapboetes. Dit betekent dat het model gebruikt kan worden voor het bepalen van de ideale aankomst- en vertrektijden op overstapstations. Hoewel het SPOT-model geen rekening houdt met infrastructurele beperkingen, kunnen de resultaten worden gebruikt om per station te bepalen welke overstaprelaties van belang zijn. Om deze hypothese te bevestigen zijn in dit onderzoek twee experimenten uitgevoerd voor de overstapstations Weesp en Zwolle. Deze locaties zijn gekozen op basis van recente studies binnen NS op het gebied van een post-corona dienstregeling. Voor elk experiment zijn bepaalde elementen van de huidige dienstregeling alsmede van de voorgestelde post-corona dienstregeling in het model geladen. Op deze manier kunnen de effecten op de dienstregeling voor de specifieke locatie in kaart worden gebracht en geanalyseerd. De uitkomsten van het model bestaan uit de GRT, verbeterpotentie per herkomst-bestemmingspaar en halteertijdgrafieken, welke vervolgens een duidelijk beeld geven van hoe ieder experiment scoort. Uiteindelijk is op basis van deze experimenten geconcludeerd dat het SPOT-model geschikt is voor langetermijnstudies waarbinnen verschillende dienstregelingsvoorstellen met elkaar moeten worden vergeleken. Het model kan daarbij inzicht bieden in de impact en afwegingen die in het ontwerp gemaakt moeten worden. Op deze manier kunnen verschillende gedachtegangen al beoordeeld worden voordat er een gedetailleerde, conflictvrije dienstregeling ontworpen wordt. Daarmee is het model dus toepasbaar in de fase van het verkennend dienstregelingsonderzoek.

Context: Most of the problem of generating timetable for a school belongs to the class of NP-hard problems. Complexity and practical value makes this kind of problem interesting for parallel computing. Objectives: This paper focuses on Class-Teacher problem with weighted time slots and proofs that it is NP-complete problem. Branch and bound scheme and two approaches to distribute the simulated annealing are proposed. Empirical evaluation of described methods is conducted in an elementary school computer laboratory. Methods: Simulated annealing implementation described in literature are adapted for the problem, and prepared for execution in distributed systems. Empirical evaluation is conducted with the real data from Polish elementary school. Results: Proposed branch and bound scheme scales nearly logarithmically with the number of nodes in computing cluster. Proposed parallel simulated annealing models tends to increase solution quality. Conclusions: Despite a significant increase in computing power, computer laboratories are still unprepared for heavy computation. Proposed branch and bound method is infeasible with the real instances. Parallel Moves approach tends to provide better solution at the beginning of execution, but the Multiple Independent Runs approach outruns it after some time.
Sammanhang: De flesta problem med att generera scheman för en skola tillhör klassen av NP-svårt problemen. Komplexitet och praktiskt värde gör att den här typen av problemen forskas med särskild uppmärksamhet på en parallell bearbetning.   Syfte: Detta dokument fokusarar på Klass-Lärare problem med vikter för enskilda tidsluckor och på att visa var ett NP-svårt problem är fullständigt. Branch and bound scheman och två metoder för att distribuera en simulerad glödgning algoritm presenterades. En empirisk analys av beskrivna metoder gjordes i datorlaboratorium i en grundskola. Metod: Implementering av en simulerad glödgning algoritm som beskrivs i litteraturen blev anpassad till ett utvalt problem och distribuerade system. Empirisk utvärdering genomförs med verkliga data från polska grundskolan Resultat: Föreslagit Branch and bound system graderar nästan logaritmiskt antal noder i ett datorkluster. Den simulerade glödgning algoritmen som föreslagits förbättrar lösningarnas kvalitet. Slutsatser: Trots att en betydande ökning med beräkningskraft är inte datasalar i skolor anpassad till avancerade beräkningar. Användning av den Branch and Bound föreslagna metoden till praktiska problem är omöjlig i praktiken. En annan föreslagen metod Parallel Moves ger bättre resultat i början av utförandet men Multiple Independent Runs hittar bättre lösningar efter en viss tid.

Teachers report that advanced knowledge of the day’s activities can considerably lessen anxiety for children with autism, especially if this information is highly visual in its presentation. Teaching children with autism often follows a highly structured approach including use of visual planning aids, such as symbolic timetables (Gillberg & Coleman, 2000; Mesibov, Browder, & Kirkland, 2002). Children with autism have been noted to be skilled at using computers and it has been suggested that the computer presents an ideal resource for both educational and recreational use (Attwood, 1998; Higgins & Boone, 1996; D. Moore, 1998; Murray, 1997). However, in spite of widespread use of visual timetables in schools by children with autism, there is little evidence of research being conducted in the area of computerised timetabling for this population. The overall aim of this particular study was to develop an interactive, computer-based timetable and to explore and assess the practical value for children with autism. The research was of an ethnographic nature and involved a case study approach. The development of the interactive timetable followed a user-centred design. Participating children attended a language and communication class attached to a mainstream primary school in Scotland. Seven males aged between six and nine years of age were involved, with four of the children able to participate in the final evaluations of the interactive timetable. Other participants included special needs teachers, nursery nurses, speech and language therapists, and parents of participating children. Examination of a symbolic timetable identified several important issues relevant to the design of an interactive timetable, whilst consideration of parental and educationalist views, gathered through interview, highlighted both benefits and concerns. By extending use to the home environment, the interactive timetable was considered to facilitate communication between child and parent. Concerns regarding access, size and position, user ability, and availability of resources were identified. Although findings were inconclusive, it was possible to communicate timetable information in a computer-based form and furthermore, the children appeared to enjoy using the timetable. Whilst the setting for this study was a single language and communication class attached to a mainstream primary school, this research has implications for a wider debate. The study found generally that the prospect of using information and communication technology to display an interactive timetable which was accessible both at school and at home, offered numerous possibilities for children with autism and their families.

Le trafic ferroviaire urbain est quotidiennement sujet à des perturbations qui le dévient de son comportement nominal. Afin de minimiser l'impact de ces perturbations, les opérateurs ferroviaires usent de diverses techniques. Nonobstant leur efficacité, les performances de ces techniques ne sont généralement pas bien étudiées ni sont-elles optimales, car élaborées empiriquement. C'est dans ce cadre-ci que vient cet ouvrage fournir des solutions qui permettent d'évaluer ces techniques de régulation et d'en comparer les performances dans des contextes variés. L’approche proposée se base sur des variantes de réseaux de Petri comme modèles et sur la méthode de Monte-Carlo pour en simuler l’exécution. Cette combinaison a donné naissance à SIMSTORS, un outil de simulation pour les systèmes ferroviaires urbains, et plus généralement, pour les systèmes stochastiques régulés. Additionnellement, nous nous intéressons dans cette thèse à la problématique de la réalisabilité des tables horaires qui pilotent le trafic ferroviaire. Ces tables décrivent le comportement temporel désiré des systèmes pour lesquels elles sont conçues. Or, la construction de ces tables ne garantit pas toujours sa réalisabilité, notamment dans un contexte stochastique. Ainsi, nous proposons ici une méthode permettant de vérifier si une table horaire est bien réalisable avec une probabilité strictement positive
Urban rail traffic is subject to numerous disrupting events that drift it from its nominal behavior. In order to minimize the impact of these disturbances, rail operators rely on a set of techniques. Despite their efficiency, performances of theses techniques are rarely well studied, nor are they of proven optimality; a direct consequence of them being empirically built. It is in this particular context that comes our work to provide solutions that allow for the evaluation of such techniques and for the comparison of their relative performances in various scenarios. The proposed approach is based on variants of Petri nets as models, and on the Monte-Carlo method for the simulation of their execution. This combination has led to the development of SIMSTORS, a tool for the simulation of urban rail systems, and more generally, stochastic systems under dynamic rescheduling. Additionally, this thesis addresses the question of timetable realizability; that is whether or not a given timetable is indeed realizable by a system for which it was built. Indeed, a timetable is meant to drive the behavior of a system but there is no guarantee as to its realizability. We therefore propose a method for the verification of the realizability of timetables with a strictly positive probability

Transit agencies include buffer time in their schedules to maintain stable headways and avoid bus bunching. In this work, a real-time holding mechanism is proposed to dispatch buses on a loop-shaped route, solely based on operating conditions in real-time. Holds are applied at the terminal station to minimize the expected variance of bus headways at departure. The bus-dispatching problem is formulated as a stochastic decision process. The optimality equations are derived and structural properties of the optimal policy are inferred by backward induction. The exact optimal holding policy is then found in closed form, as a function of the expected travel time of buses currently running. A simulation assuming stochastic operating conditions and unstable headway dynamics is performed to assess the expected average waiting time of passengers at stations. The proposed control strategy is found to provide lower passenger waiting time and better resiliency than methods recommended in the literature and used in practice.

The purpose with this report is to develop a network based insertion algorithm and evaluate it on a real-case timetable. The aim of the algorithm is to minimize the effect that that train implementation cause on the other, already scheduled traffic. We meet this purpose by choosing an objective function that maximizes the minimum distance to a conflicting train path. This ensures that the inserted train receives the best possible bottleneck robustness. We construct a graph problem, which solve with a modified version of Dijkstra’s algorithm. The complexity of the algorithm is Ο(s^2 t log⁡(s^2 t). We applied the algorithm on a Swedish timetable, containing 76 stations. The algorithm performs well and manage to obtain the optimal solution for a range of scenarios, which we have evaluated in various experiments. Increased congestion seemed to reduce the problem size. The case also show that a solution’s robustness decreases with increasing total number of departures. One disadvantage with the algorithm is that it cannot detect the best solution among those using the same bottleneck. We propose a solution to this that we hope can be implemented in further studies.

The university academic timetable is the framework which defines the rhythm of the term-time student activities that occur on campus. This thesis explores how the design of the academic timetable affects student trip-making behaviour to and from campus and is motivated by concerns around the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the campus-based university. The thesis investigates the current understanding of student trip-making behaviour and shows that whilst it is informally generally accepted that students may plan their trips to campus around the demands placed on their time by the academic timetable, this appointment based approach is not generally recognised in student trip models. The thesis demonstrates that it is the timetable which is the main driver of student travel demand, that changes to the timetable can influence trip-making behaviour, and that a policy of timetable compression, combined with a greater use of online resources could be employed to reduce student trips to/from campus and student presence on it, thereby making the university more environmentally sustainable. However, students with compressed timetables appear to be less engaged with their studies, and exhibit a greater degree of variation in terms of their attainment level compared with students whose timetables force them to be on campus on an almost full-time basis. Students appear to prefer timetables that limit the time they need to spend on campus, and the thesis suggests that addressing this mismatch between what students currently appear to want, and what seems to offer them the best potential academic outcome represents a major future challenge to the long term academic sustainability of the campus based university.

This thesis covers both applications where simulation is used on parts of the Swedish rail networks and running time calculations for future high-speed trains with top speed improvements on existing lines. Calculations are part of a subproject within the Green Train research program (Gröna tåget). Higher speeds are possible with increased cant and cant deficiency in curves. Data for circular curve radii is used on existing lines combined with information on decided and on-going upgrades. Calculation of static speed profiles is made for a set of cant and cant deficiency values. Different train characteristics are used regarding top speed, starting acceleration and power to ton ratio. Running time calculations are made for these different train characteristics with the fictive speed profiles. In addition, different stopping patterns are applied. Results are presented together with running times for two reference train types, one with carbody tilting and one without. It is clear that carbody tilting, allowing a higher cant deficiency, is important on many of the existing lines considering achieved running times. The benefit of tilting is marginal on newly built and future lines designed with large curve radii. However, on many of the existing lines the over 20 year old reference train with carbody tilting achieves shorter running times compared to a future train without tilt but with higher top speed. The work presented here has contributed with input to other projects and applications within the research program. Simulation in RailSys is used to evaluate on-time performance for high-speed trains, between Stockholm and Göteborg in Sweden, and changes in timetable allowances and buffer times with respect to other trains. Results show that ontime performance can be improved with increased allowances or buffer times. In the case with increased buffers, other trains are pushed in the timetable with the intention of obtaining at least five minutes at critical places (e.g. conflicting train paths at stations) and as separation on line sections. On-time performance is evaluated both on aggregated (group) level and for trains individually. Some of the trains benefit significantly from the applied measures. Prior to a simulation some of the delays have to be defined. This includes dwell extensions and entry delays, i.e. extended exchange times at stations and delayed origin station departures inside or at the network border. Evaluation of observed data give insight on the performance of a real network. However, separating primary (exogenous) and secondary (knock-on) delays is not straightforward. Typically the probabilities and levels of primary delays are defined as input, thus secondary delays are created in the simulations. Although some classification of delays exist in observed data, it is not sufficient without further assumptions and preparation. A method for estimating primary running time extensions is presented and applied on a real timetable between Katrineholm and Hässleholm in Sweden. The approach consist of creating distributions based on deviations from scheduled running time. Since this represent total outcome, i.e. both primary and knock-on delays are included, the distributions are reduced by a certain percentage and applied in the simulations. Reduction is done in four steps, separately for passenger and freight trains. Root mean square error (RMSE) is used for comparing mean and standard deviation values between simulated and observed data. Results show that a reasonably good fit can be obtained. Freight services show a higher variation than passenger train evaluation groups. Some explanations for this are difficulties in capturing the variations in train weights and speeds and absence of shunting operations in the model. In reality, freight trains can also frequently depart ahead of schedule and this effect is not captured in the simulations. However, focus is mostly on passenger trains and their on-time performance. If a good enough agreement and operational behaviour is achieved for them, a lower agreement for freight trains may be accepted.
QC 20120611

In this thesis the symptoms and underlying behaviour of congestion on railways are analysed and discussed. As well as in many other countries, Sweden faces increasing demand for transport. To meet this new demand, railways play an important role. Today, the capacity of the Swedish rail network is not upgraded at the speed necessary to keep up with the increase in traffic demand. The sensitivity of the railway system rises as the capacity utilisation increases. At some point the marginal gain of operating one extra train is lower than the costs in term of increased sensitivity to delay, i.e. maximum capacity has been reached. Two methodologies are employed in this thesis to analyse capacity. The first uses real data from the Swedish rail network, train operation and delays to analyse how different factors influence available capacity and delay creation. Several useful key performance indicators are defined to describe capacity influencing properties of the infrastructure and the rail traffic. The rail network is divided into subsections for which the indicators have been estimated. This makes it possible to discern their different characteristics and identify potential weaknesses.  The second approach employs the railway simulation tool RailSys in extensive simulation experiments. This methodology is used to analyse the characteristics of double track operation. Simulation of several hundred scenarios are conducted to analyse the influence of traffic density, timetable speed heterogeneity, primary delays and inter-station distance on secondary delays and used timetable allowance. The analysis gives an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms behind the performance of a double track.
QC 20120614

This thesis aims at designing search methods that can produce competitive solutions and to some extent, are of higher generality than the state of the art search/optimisation systems. Attaining this aim would underpin the next generation of automated systems with the goal being to require less specialist knowledge in solving complex optimisation problems. The main challenge in this project is to develop systems of higher generality which can intelligently select, evolve or combine search methods (heuristics) to operate upon a wider range of problems and problem instances. This research follows that direction and contributes to the goal of exploring the generality boundary of this new trend of automating the design of search systems. The mam contributions in this thesis are divided into two parts. The first part investigates different approaches to combine constructive heuristics which are capable of producing good solutions for timetabling problems. Chapter 3 presents a weighted graph model for the exam timetabling problem where vertices and edges store several extra-attributes to improve the process of finding difficult exams and selecting timeslots for them. Chapter 4 investigates sequential and linear combinations of vertex-selection heuristics that have emerged from the weighted graph model. The results on the Toronto exam timetabling benchmark are compared with those obtained from other approaches in the literature. The second part of the research focuses on raising the level of generality for search methodologies by investigating the use of estimation of distribution algorithms into a proposed hyper-heuristic for several optimisation problems. Chapter 5 presents an extended framework for the best-fit strategy for the three-dimensional strip packing 2 problem. Chapter 6 proposes a hyper-heuristic based on estimation of distribution algorithms. Then we investigate the level of generality of the hyper-heuristic by applying it to different problem domains (graph colouring, exam timetabling, and 3D strip packing). Experimental evidence indicates that the hyper-heuristic can operate on a wide range of problems to produce some competitive results. We also demonstrate the capability of identifying the effectiveness of the low-level heuristics. This may facilitate the development of efficient automated search systems in future research. Finally, Chapter 7 evaluates all the results obtained and summarises promising future research directions.

This thesis investigates cost functions for evaluating and optimising the performance of a timetable with mixed train services. Specifically, the performance considered herein includes crowdedness, journey time, punctuality and waiting time. To examine the implications of optimising using these cost functions, a multi-objective optimisation algorithm is developed to derive an optimised timetable for mixed train services. The optimisation algorithm consists of three stages: a Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to determine the optimal sequence of train runs, followed by Dijkstras shortest path algorithm for determining the optimal schedule based on the sequence determined by GA, and finally an iterative Hill-Climbing procedure for determining the optimal number of train runs in the system. Experiments were carried out on the Brighton Main Line and examined the effect of different timetabling parameters. The first series of experiments showed that the cost of the timetable can be driven down simply through resequencing the trains such that trains exiting the network quickly are more evenly distributed through the time period examined. This occurs since trains exiting early create a buffer which can absorb delays, preventing their propagation. The experiments have also shown that different demand levels influence the number of trains to be scheduled. The optimal number of trains to schedule though relies on the equilibrium between the crowdedness and punctuality cost function. Scheduling additional trains leads to a non-linear reduction in the marginal gains in terms of the crowdedness function while, on the other hand, the cost of punctuality increase exponentially. Finally, we derive the Pareto Frontiers for different combinations of cost functions. This research contributes to the state-of-art of railway system analysis and optimisation.

The growing demand for railway capacity has led to high capacity consumption at times and a delay-sensitive network with insufficient robustness. The fundamental challenge is therefore to decide how to increase the robustness. To do so there is a need for accurate measures that return whether the timetable is robust or not and indicate where improvements should be made. Previously presented measures are useful when comparing different timetable candidates with respect to robustness, but less useful to decide where and how robustness should be inserted. In this paper, we focus on points where trains enter a line, or where trains are being overtaken, since we have observed that these points are critical for the robustness. The concept of critical points can be used in the practical timetabling process to identify weaknesses in a timetable and to provide suggestions for improvements. In order to quantitatively assess how crucial a critical point may be, we have defined the measure RCP (Robustness in Critical Points). A high RCP value is preferred, and it reflects a situation at which train dispatchers will have higher prospects of handling a conflict effectively. The number of critical points, the location pattern and the RCP values constitute an absolute value for the robustness of a certain train slot, as well as of a complete timetable. The concept of critical points and RCP can be seen as a contribution to the already defined robustness measures which combined can be used as guidelines for timetable constructors.

This thesis covers applications and proposes methods for using simulation in a more effectiveway and also in a wider context than normally used. One of the proposed methods deals withdelay modeling that can be used in a calibration process. Furthermore, a method is presentedthat facilitates the management of having timetables, infrastructure scenarios and delays asvariables in simulation studies. The simulation software used in this thesis is RailSys, whichuses a microscopic formulation to describe the infrastructure and train movements.Timetable changes with respect to allowances and buffer times are applied on a real case(Western Main Line) in Sweden in order to analyze how the on-time performance is affectedfor high-speed passenger trains. The potential benefit is that increased allowances and buffertimes will decrease the probability of train interactions and events where the scheduled trainsequence is changed. The on-time performance improves when allowances are increasedand when buffer times concerning high-speed trains are adjusted to at least five minutes inlocations with potential conflicts. One drawback with this approach is that it can consumemore space in a timetable at certain locations, hence other trains may need adjustments inorder reach these buffer times.Setting up simulations, especially in large networks, can take significant amount of timeand effort. One of the reasons is that different types of delay distributions, representingprimary events, are required in order to obtain conformity with reality if a real timetable andnetwork is modeled. Considering train registration data in Sweden, the separation in primaryand secondary delays is not straightforward. The presented method uses the basic trainregistration data to compile distributions of run time deviations for different train groups ina network. The results from the Southern Main Line case study show that a reasonable goodfit was obtained, both for means and standard deviations of delays. A method for capturingthe variance in freight train operations is proposed, partly based on the findings from theaforementioned study. Instead of modeling early freight trains on time, the true initiationdistributions are applied on time-shifted freight trains.In addition to the already mentioned methods, which are applied on real networks, a methodfor reducing the uncertainties coming from assumptions of future conditions is proposed. It isbased on creating combinatorial departure times for train groups and locations and formulatingthe input as nominal timetables to RailSys. The dispatching algorithm implementedin the software can then be utilized to provide feasible, conflict-managed, timetables whichcan be evaluated. This can be followed by operational simulations with stochastic delays ona subset of the provided timetables. These can then consequently be evaluated with respectto mean delays, on-time performance etc.To facility the use of the infrastructure as a variable in these type of studies, an infrastructuregenerator is developed which makes it relatively easy to design different station layouts andproduce complete node-link structures and other necessary definitions. The number, locationand type of stations as well as the linking of stations through single-track or multi-tracksections can be done for multiple infrastructure scenarios. Although the infrastructure canbe defined manually in RailSys, a considerably amount of time and effort may be needed.In order to examine the feasibility of this method, case studies are performed on fictive linesconsisting mostly of single-track sections. This shows that the method is useful, especiallywhen multiple scenarios are studied and the assumptions on timetables consist of departureintervals for train groups and their stop patterns.

QC 20150526

The aim of the thesis is to create a model of timetable for primary school for all teachers and classes so that the timetable is in compliance with all teaching plans, the conditions of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (general education program), the school's needs and requirements of teachers. The timetable is created for a particular school, ZŠ nám. Svobody in Prague. The first part of the thesis is focused on the theoretical description of methods and procedures for dealing with the problem of timetable. The second part describes the elementary school, for which the timetable is made, it's classes, teachers and conditions of the tuition. It is also formulated and described a mathematical model of the problem that is solved by using the program Lingo.

Future air traffic management (ATM) systems have been identified as a matter of great significance for the evolution of future air navigation systems (FANS). As one function of ATM, Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) provides a service complementary to Air Traffic Control (ATC). In this research, a Knowledge-Based System (KBS) has been designed to try to solve the ATFM problem. For timetable rescheduling, the system attempts to modify airlines tiemtable to smooth traffic peaks at airports during rush-hours. For centralized flow control, the system works on-line to forecast the place, time and magnitude of the congestion and to take some actions to prevent this congestion. As an Artificial Intelligence language, Prolog was chosen for developing the prototype of the Knowledge-Based ATFM System. The research gives a conceptual description of the application of KBS (specially in Prolog) in the ATFM domain. Using this system, a study of the Brazilian ATFM systemincluding the main airports of the country has been done.

The problem of finding an optimal schedule for universities based on their numerous constraints is NP-complete and thus requires heuristics to get good solutions. Our study has compared two constraint solvers that employ different combinations of heuristics to determine which is more suitable for universities. Our results indicate that CPSolver performed better at all intervals (20, 60, and 300 seconds) for optimizing the soft constraints, however the default algorithm configuration used with Optaplanner was discovered to be sub optimal during the result analysis. CPSolver used a combination of IFS, Hill Climbing, Great Deluge and Simulated Annealing while Optaplanner’s configuration only used a version of Local Search. Therefore we conclude that when comparing the two solvers running with their default configurations, CPSolver performs better by a wide margin, but further research is required to determine which solver is better with ideal algorithm choices.
Problemet med att hitta optimalt schema för universitet baserat på alla deras krav är NP-komplett och vi behöver därför vända oss till heuristiker för att kunna få bra scheman. Vår studie har jämfört två constraint solvers som använder olika kombinationer av heuristiker för att avgöra vilken som är mer lämpade för universitet. Våra resultat indikerar att CPSolver är mer optimal vid alla intervall (20, 60 och 300 sekunder) för att optimera våra mjuka krav. Dock så upptäcktes det under resultatanalysen att algoritmkonfigurationen som användes med Optaplanner var suboptimal. CPSolver använde sig utav en kombination av Iterative Forward Search, Hill Climbing, Great Deluge samt Simulated Anealing medans Optaplanner var konfigurerad till att endast använda envariant av lokalsökning. Vår slutsats är att CPSolver presterar bättre med stor marginal med de inställningar på verktygen som vi använde, men för att avgöra vilken som är bättre med ideala algoritmval så bör ytterligare studier utföras.

Lewin, K & Malm, E (2014). Utökad timplan i matematik; och systemets tröghet ( Extended timetable in mathematics; and system interia). Speciallärarprogrammet inriktning matematik 90 hp, Skolutvecklning och ledarskap, Lärande och samhälle, Malmö högskolaProblemområdeSveriges elevers låga resultat gällande matematik i internationella och nationella undersökningar är oroande. Utifrån detta konstaterande har regeringen genomfört flera förändringar, en ökad timplan vilket innebär fler lektionstimmar för varje elev, fortbildningsinsatser i matematikämnet, förändringar i kraven på lärarutbildningarna samt bonusar till studenter som väljer att utbilda sig till matematiklärare. Vi vill i vårt arbete försöka följa och synliggöra hur de direktiv kring den förändrade timplanen som regeringen tagit fram verkställs och får genomslag ute i skolan. Syfte och preciserade frågeställningarVårt syfte med detta arbete är att synliggöra skeenden och förutsättningar som är kopplade till de processer som sker när förutsättningar i skolan förändras. I detta fall handlar det om genomförandet av den utökade timplanen i matematik. Vi vill följa processen i fyra led, från förslag, lagar och riktlinjer utfärdade av statliga organ, via huvudman, skolledare till lärarna och därmed ut i de reella verksamheterna. Frågeställningar:•Hur har huvudman säkerställt uppföljningen?•Följer rektor och huvudman de allmänna råd som Skolverket gett ut i samband med lagändringen?•Upplever lärare att det skett någon egentlig förändring?Teoretisk ram:De teoretiska utgångspunkterna har vi hämtat från ramfaktorteorin, systemteori och organisationsteoriMetodVi valde att göra en kvantitativ studie med ett hermeneutiskt förhållningsätt utifrån ett systemteoretiskt perspektiv. Som metod har vi använt oss av enkäter riktade till rektorer och lärare i två kommuner. Resultat med analysVi fick en låg svarsfrekvens och kan därför inte generalisera. Analysen av resultaten ger oss dock en bild av att kommunikationen mellan parterna är bristfällig. De av regeringen fattade besluten kring förändringar har ännu inte fått genomslag ute i de kommuner vi undersökt. Vi upplever också att det är oklart vem som har ansvar och för vad. Denna slutsats kan vi dra enbart genom att analysera de svar vi fått från olika tjänstemän i kommunerna. Vi har blivit hänvisade i flera led och ofta tillbaks till någon av dem vi redan kontaktat. Det finns även ett glapp i kommunikationsleden mellan huvudman och rektor. Exempelvis så har huvudman ett ansvar för att säkerställa genomförande och uppföljning. Detta till trots så har ingen av kommunerna riktlinjer för hur detta ska göras. Rektorernas tolkningar av hur förändringen skall redovisas visar en stor spridning. Det framgår även att det på huvudmannanivå uppenbarligen finns en tolkningsfrihet kring frågan vad regeringens ökade ekonomiska anslag ska användas till. Detta trots att regeringen i beslutet anger vad det extra anslaget bör användas till.KunskapsbidragHistoriskt har specialpedagogisk forskning oftast riktat sig mot ett individuellt och deltagande perspektiv. Vi har i detta arbete sökt bredda den specialpedagogiska synvinkeln då vi tror att processer som sker inom skolans värld i det yttersta ledet påverkar de elever som vi kommer att arbeta med. Specialpedagogiska implikationerVi har i forskning och i vår egen praktik sett att den undervisningstid och tidiga insatser generellt påverkar elever som riskerar att hamna i matematiksvårigheter positiv. Vi anser det därför mycket relevant att ur ett specialpedagogiskt perspektiv granska processer och följa upp riktlinjer. De elever vi kommer att arbeta med är en grupp som i yttersta ledet påverkas av förändringar. Såväl positiva som negativa sådana.
According to national and international studies, Swedish students low marks in mathematics are disturbing. The government has launched a numbers of changes. In our essay we try to follow and visualize how the directive on the revised timetable has been implemented in school.

Thesis (Sc.D.)--Boston University PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you.
As children develop, parents gradually transfer responsibility for managing daily tasks to them. This everyday phenomenon is observed in most families regardless of whether children have disabilities or not. Surprisingly, little research directly investigates this phenomenon. This dissertation contains two studies. The first documented the developmental timetable of responsibility shift among typically developing children. The second study explored which variables were associated with responsibility shift in both typically developing children and children with disabilities. Both studies used the Responsibility Domain of the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory- Computer Adaptive Test (PEDI-CAT) to examine the shift of responsibility from parents to children for daily life management. Both studies utilized an existing dataset, which has parent-report data on a U.S. nationally representative sample of 2,205 typically developing children (48.9% females, age range 0-20, about 100 children per age year) and a sample of 617 children with disabilities (37.3% females, age range 0-20). In the first study, we obtained descriptive statistics and identified two critical ages for each daily task: (a) starting age (when more than 50% of children were first reported to have taken at least some responsibility), and (b) full responsibility age (when more than 50% of children were first reported to have taken full responsibility). We then examined which groups of Responsibility Domain items showed similar age patterns. We found that the shift of responsibility extended for a period of 5 years or longer in many items. The second study used separate multiple regressions to identify which child, parent, and family characteristics were associated with responsibility shift in both typically developing children and children with disabilities. We found that the child's age (older), temperament (focused), and birth order (youngest) were significantly associated with higher scores across samples. We found that developmental delay, intellectual disability, autism, or orthopedic/movement impairments were associated with lower scores. This dissertation research provides preliminary information on the timing and associated variables of responsibility shift. Results begin to fill a significant gap in our knowledge regarding this phenomenon. Clinicians may find the information helpful when planning individualized interventions to teach daily task management to children with disabilities.

Effective commuting is an important part of regional development and attractiveness, where railway traffic is a favourable mode of transportation owing to it being energy efficient and environmentally friendly. Attaining more people to choose the train to commute is therefore desirable. A concept aiming to increase the use of railway traffic is cyclic timetable. At present the concept is most frequently used on a national level but there are possibilities to implement the ideas on a more regional level. The purpose of this thesis is to study if and how a cyclic timetable for railway traffic can be constructed and optimised for a region, more specifically the region “Fyra Mälarstäder”. Challenges and opportunities to implement this type of timetable on a regional level are also discussed. In order to construct a timetable for railway traffic several infrastructural limitations must be taken into account. An example that extensively limits railway capacity is single tracks. Hence, to be able to construct and optimise the timetable these limitations were formulated, together with a number of other criteria, mathematically as constraints for an optimisation problem. For the optimisation setup the objective function consisted of a sum of weighted trip times within the system, which in turn was minimised. Results conclude that a cyclic timetable could successfully be used for “Fyra Mälarstäder”. However, some aspects remain to be investigated, including train line continuation beyond the system boundaries of the study. As for the optimisation, it appears that the weighting of the objective function plays a considerable role to obtain a satisfying timetable. Varying and adjusting certain parameters may also be favourable to achieve a timetable as beneficial as possible.
Allt fler arbetspendlar i Sverige och Trafikverkets prognoser visar att ökningen kommer att fortsätta. För att pendlingen ska vara hållbar behöver allt fler resor göras kollektivt, och tåget som transportmedel är på många sätt ett bra alternativ. Tåget är snabbt och effektivt, samtidigt som det är ett mer miljövänligt trafikslag. Att få ännu fler att välja tåget, framför exempelvis bil, är därför önskvärt. Pendling sker idag både över kommun- och länsgränser, vilket innebär att regionala samarbeten kan underlätta för att åstadkomma så goda pendlingsmöjligheter som möjligt. Ett exempel på en sådant samarbete är Fyra Mälarstäder i samverkan (Eskilstuna, Västerås, Enköping, Strängnäs), vars förhoppning är att kunna utveckla regionen bland annat genom att förbättra kollektivtrafiken mellan städerna. Ett sätt att förbättra pendlingsmöjligheterna är att försöka åstadkomma en så gynnsam tidtabell som möjligt. Takttidtabell är ett intressant koncept, utvecklat för tågtrafiken i Schweiz, vilket kortfattat innebär att tåg avgår samma minut varje timme, och med jämna intervall. Konceptet innebär ofta också att låta tåg mötas vid knutpunkter i järnvägsnätet för att underlätta för byten till andra tåglinjer för fortsatt resa, vilket därmed knyter ihop tågtrafiken i ett större system. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om och hur en takttidtabell kan konstrueras och optimeras för en region som Fyra Mälarstäder. Optimeringen spelar en central roll för att få till en tidtabell som är så bra som möjligt. Därtill diskuteras även vilka utmaningar, men också vilka möjligheter det finns med att applicera takttidskonceptet på en regional nivå, eftersom det idag allt som oftast tillämpas nationellt. För att konstruera en tidtabell för järnvägstrafik måste flera begränsningar på järnvägen tas i hänsyn. Ett exempel som i hög grad begränsar kapaciteten är enkelspår, vilket följaktligen gör att tåg inte kan mötas på vissa sträckor. För att kunna konstruera takttidtabellen genom optimering formulerades dessa begränsningar, tillsammans med en rad andra kriterier, matematiskt som bivillkor till ett optimeringsproblem. För optimeringsuppställningen bestod målfunktionen av summan av viktade restider inom systemet, vilken i sin tur minimerades. Optimeringsproblemet implementerades i MATLAB som användes för att lösa problemet. Resultaten visar att takttidtabell med de kriterier som ställts upp i studien kan konstrueras, och möjligheter finns för att implementera denna för järnvägstrafiken mellan fyra Mälarstäder. Vissa aspekter återstår dock att utreda, däribland tåglinjers fortsatta sträckning utanför studiens systemgränser. Vad gäller optimeringsuppställningen framgår det att en viktning av målfunktionen spelar en ansenlig roll. Att variera och justera parametrar kan också vara en god idé för att få till en så tillfredsställande tidtabell som möjligt.

This thesis seeks to understand the role of school timetables as an interface between policies that regulate or distribute forms of capital to schools, and their teaching and learning rhythms. By doing so, it proposes a mechanism for examining the reproduction of schooling practices, and how these are grounded in policy-regulated materiality. Two high schools with similar historic backgrounds, and operating under the same provincial government, were selected and closely studied for evidence of rhythms of practice and the correspondence of these rhythms to each school's timetable. The two schools now experience different access to resources, and have significant differences in teaching and learning rhythms, as well as school-leaving summative assessment results. The study develops an analytic framework for identifying policies that reach into schools through the timetable. Five key inputs are identified as necessary for constructing timetables, providing productive lines of inquiry as to which policies affect schooling rhythms and how. By asking who teaches whom, what, with what and where, systematic analysis is conducted on: how schools are staffed (who); who they enrol (whom); their interpretation of curriculum (what); what supplementary resources they can command (with what); and their infrastructural facilities and geographic (dis)advantages (where). The interaction between these different threads is examined as they tangle within each school's timetable. The enactment of the policies regulating each thread is then traced through the layers of governance of the South African education system: national, provincial and local (school-level). Timetables are conceptualised in this study as local representations of intended teaching and learning rhythm. Using Lefebvre's triad of timespace-conceived, timespace-perceived and timespace-lived, timetables (timespace-conceived) are brought into conversation with timespace-lived through daily teaching and learning activities. Bourdieu's theory of practice is used with Lefebvre to animate the ‘game' of schooling: what schools strive for, what forms of capital they can command to sustain or improve their field position, and how they reproduce their practices. Bourdieu and Lefebvre together generate a sociomaterial practice theory lens that foregrounds timetables and their legitimacy to govern rhythms of teaching and learning in timespace. Timetables emerge as a site of the production and reproduction of advantage (fortified schools) and/or disadvantage (exposed schools) in the game of schooling. In timetables, the policies that avail forms of capital interact in previously unconsidered ways, suggesting that collectively they potentially undergird inequality in the education system.

Habitants tout comme la distribution du pays. L’enfant qui occupe une place importante dans la société vietnamienne est bien entendu associé à ce changement. Les enfants sont par exemple nombreux dans les nouveaux supermarchés vietnamiens,ou dans les centres commerciaux nouvellement crées. Notre recherche est née de cette interrogation : Les enfants peuvent-ils être des alliés pour la grande distribution qui se développe au Vietnam ?La revue de littérature nous amène à étudier l’enfant consommateur avec les spécificités par rapport à l’adulte. De plus, comme l’enfant consommateur est dépendant de ses parents qui décident l’achat familial dans la plupart des cas, nous étudions l’enfant dans l’achat familial avec le rôle des parents dans le processus de socialisation du consommateur de l’enfant.Cette revue de littérature a été ensuite combinée avec une enquête qualitative de 20 entretiens avec les parents et 20 entretiens avec les enfants élèves scolaires à Hanoi pour la vérification sur la coïncidence entre les concepts et les pratiquesde consommation dans le contexte occidental et ceux dans le contexte du Vietnam. De plus, cette enquête a pour but de générer les items susceptibles d’enrichir les échelles occidentales. Le résultat de cette enquête nous a amené à présenterdeux modèles distinctifs, l’un lié aux parents, l’autre lié aux enfants au Vietnam.Après les prétests avec les démarches positivistes, nous arrivons à vérifier la fiabilité des variables de nos modèles tout en respectant le paradigme de Churchill (1977). Ensuite, nous avons pu lancer notre enquête finale dans les 3 écoles primaires de Hanoï.1181 enfants élèves des classes en 4e et en 5e, ainsi que 921 parents de ces élèves ont participé à répondre à nosquestionnaires. Le résultat de cette enquête nous donne des conclusions sur l’existence de la participation de l’enfant à l’achat familial au Vietnam, la préférence de l’enfant à l’achat dans les types de commerce moderne. Cette participation est liée à la communication au sein de la famille dont ce qui compte, c’est la fréquence de communication plus que sa nature (l’orientation)de cette communication. De plus, les familles vietnamiennes n’ont pas toutes les mêmes objectifs éducatifs tandis que les pratiques sont assez semblables selon les familles, mais les attentes varient, et la classe sociale semble jouer un rôle
The current Vietnam saw a significant change in its economic system. This system influences the lifestyle of the inhabitants as the retailing of the country. The child as an important place in Vietnamese society is of course associated with this change. Children are for example in many new Vietnamese supermarkets, or in newly created shopping centers. Our research grew out of this question: Can children be allies for retailing that develops in Vietnam?The literature review leads us to study consumer-child with specifics compared to adults. Furthermore, as consumer-child is dependent on his parents who choose to family purchase in most cases, we study the child in the family purchase withparenting in consumer socialization of children’s process.This literature review was then combined with a qualitative survey of 20 interviews with parents and 20 interviews with children in primary schools in Hanoi for checking the coincidence between the concepts and practices of consumption in the Western context and those in the context of Vietnam. In addition, this survey aims to produce items that can enrich Western scales. Theresult of this investigation has led us to present two distinct models, one related to the parents, the other related to children in Vietnam.After pretesting with positivist approaches, we can verify the reliability of the variables in our models while respecting the paradigm of Churchill (1977). Then we were able to launch our final survey in three primary schools in Hanoi.1181 children's in 4th and 5th grades and 921 parents of these children participated in answering our questionnaire. The result of this survey give us conclusions on the existence of the child's participation in family purchase in Vietnam, the preference of the child to purchase in modern commerce. This participation is related to communication within the family that what matters isthe communication frequency than its nature (guidance) of that communication. In addition, Vietnamese families do not all have the same educational objectives while practices are quite similar among families, but expectations vary, and social class seems to play a role

This study sought to explore the challenges faced by older workers who do not fit the age-type of their jobs and how older workers adapt to overcome those challenges. Specifically, I surveyed a national sample of 227 workers 50 years of age and older, in a wide variety of jobs, on measures of perceived age discrimination and adaptation behaviors. I found that fit, as determined by career timetables theory, but not prototype matching theory, successfully predicted perceived age discrimination. Specifically, more age discrimination was perceived when fewer older workers occupied a job. Additionally, multiple regression analysis showed that career timetables theory, prototype matching theory, and measures of perceived discrimination interacted to predict adaptation behaviors. That is, older workers made more efforts appear younger at work when they perceived age discrimination in jobs occupied by fewer older workers and older women expressed greater desires to appear younger at work when they perceived age discrimination in jobs viewed as more appropriate for younger workers. Although older workers made a wide variety of efforts to appear younger at work, from changing the way they dressed to undergoing surgical procedures, the adaptation efforts believed to be the most effective against age discrimination were more oriented toward enhancing job performance than one's appearance. It is especially troubling that greater perceived age discrimination was found in young-typed jobs (than in old-typed jobs) given that the number of older workers occupying young-typed jobs is expected to rapidly grow in the near future and perceived discrimination is associated with mental and physical consequences for older adults. Understanding effective adaptations to age discrimination is a valuable first step in helping older workers overcome the disadvantages they may face in the workplace, especially when they occupy young-typed jobs. Implications for theory and research are discussed.
Ph.D.
Doctorate
Psychology
Sciences
Psychology; Industrial and Organizational