A metaheuristic approach for the repositioning problem in bike sharing systems (bss): a study case in Toluca, México

Abstract

The impact of Bike Sharing Systems (BSS) in the world had experienced such success that nowadays most iconic cities in the world have adopted its own system. The particular characteristics of the user’s mobility in every city have not allowed developing a generalized procedure to operate the systems. Moreover, the lack of symmetry in the mobility patterns, and the dynamic users’ behavior lead to eventually “unbalance” the system, this is, to a lack of bikes at stations, and therefore bikes have to be repositioned to stations where effective demand is present, and there is no unified or scientifically supported methodology. In this paper we deal with a study case in Toluca city (Huizi system), in which the entity in charge of current operational activities wants to design a procedure scientifically based to perform repositioning daily activities at the minimum operational cost guarantying the availability of bikes for the users (service level). Due to operational requirements, this bi-objective problem was formulated using a dynamic scope and stated as a combinatorial optimization model and finally solved using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm.