Decision Support for Route Search and Optimum Finding in Transport Networks under Uncertainty

The aim of this paper is to find solution for route planning in road network for a user, and to find the equilibrium in the path optimization problem, where the roads have uncertain attributes. The concept is based on the Dempster-Shafer theory and Dijkstra's algorithm, which help to model the uncertainty and to find the best route, respectively. Based on uncertain influencing factors an interval of travel time (so called cost interval) of each road can be calculated. An algorithm has been outlined for determining the best route comparing the intervals and using decision rules depending on the user's attitude. Priorities can be defined among the rules, and the constructed rule based mechanism for users’ demands is great contribution of this paper. The first task is discussed in more general in this paper, i.e. instead of travel time a general cost is investigated for any kind of network. At the solution of the second task, where the goal is to find equilibrium in transport network at case of uncertain situation, the result of the first task is used. Simulation tool has been used to find the equilibrium, which gives only approximate solution, but this is sufficient and appropriate solution for large networks. Furthermore this is built in a decision support system, which is another contribution of this work. At the end of the paper the implementation of the theoretical concept is presented with a test bed of a town presenting effects of different uncertain influencing factors for the roads.