Optimal policy for scheduling automated guided vehicles in large-scale intelligent transportation systems

Automated electric mobility technologies have been increasingly applied to large-scale intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) to enhance productivity and efficiency. Advanced technologies have reshaped the traditional transportation systems and posed numerous challenges to the deployment and management of new ITSs. A major challenge in the real-life implementation of ITSs is how to manage a large number of automated objects in a cooperative manner. In this paper, we investigate the scheduling and routing problem of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in a complicated ITS. Cost and efficiency are identified as the two crucial performance indicators of such a novel ITS. An easy-to-implement practical decision policy and a tailored particle swarm based solution method are designed for problem solving. In addition to the theoretical contributions, this paper also conducts a case study to validate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed methodology, thus contributing to the planning and management of large-scale transportation systems by modeling, optimizing, and validating a new ITS deployed with AGVs.