Glossary

General

current position element

CPE, dummy stop. It must always be the first entry of each valid stoplist. It denotes the current position of the vehicle.

dispatcher

Algorithm that schedules the stops. In essence, the dispatcher is a mapping of an existing stoplist and a transportation request onto a modified stoplist and a cost of insertion/service.

Note that the dispatcher is responsible for keeping the state of the stoplists valid. This includes recomputing the estimated arrival times and making sure that the order of the stops in the stoplist follows the order of the estimated arrival times. It also means not touching the CPE.

More details on how exactly dispatchers work and how to write one can be found in the dispatcher guide.

estimated arrival time

Property of each stop. It is the time at which the vehicle was expected to reach the stop at the latest insertion of any stop (at which point the times are updated by the dispatcher).

Legacy synonym: Cached Predicted Arrival Time (CPAT).

fleet

A set of transporters.

stoplist

Ordered list of stops that define the route of a vehicle. The first element is the current position element (CPE), the other stops represent pick-up or drop-off of requests (passengers).

time window max

The maximum service time beyond which a stop may not be delayed.

Legacy synonym: Latest Allowed Service Time (LAST).

time window min

The earliest time at which a stop can be served.

Legacy synonym: Earliest Allowed Service Time (EAST).

vehicle

A transporter. In reality, this could be a transit bus or a passenger car. The primary representation of a vehicle in the framework is a stoplist.

Analytics

travel time

travel_time is the time spent on the vehicle, i.e., drop-off time minus pick-up time.