Learn how an algorithm enabled the city of Boston to save $5 million
The MIT participated in the Boston public school transportation challenge.
How to move more people with fewer vehicles.
“Much of the algorithm’s success is derived from the fact that it takes a system-level approach, instead independently routing individual schools and then connecting those routes together. Instead, the algorithm assigns students to stops, puts the stops in order to make no student’s ride longer than an hour, and then takes a multi-school routing approach. The best solution, then, is not the one that uses the fewest number of buses for each school, but the one that most effectively recycles buses on paths to multiple schools.”
As a result the district could eliminate 50 buses, more than a million miles of driving, and 20,000 pounds of CO2 emissions per day. Student ride times and walking distances were not impacted. And the district now has $5 million per year in savings to invest in education programs.
Learn more about the challenge here.
Find a full article here.
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