Abstract:
The purpose of this research is to develop an efficient system for route planning of the shuttle bus service for transporting employees of an automotive company to and from work. The company is providing shuttle bus service to its 323 employees in Samut Prakarn with 9 buses in 9 routes. The occupancy on each bus is too low, which indicates that too many buses are being used. In addition, some buses travel too far and deliver employees late for work. Both problems are due to poor route planning. A new system is therefore developed. The system employs an extension of the Clarke and Wright's Saving Algorithm to design routes in order to minimise the number of buses required and to minimise the total travelling distance. The data required by the system include pick up points, the number of employees at each pick up point, distances and travelling time from each pick up point to all other pick up points and the company. A computer software is also developed to support data management and calculation with the designed algorithm. The proposed system is applied to the shuttle bus service in Samut Prakarn, which is using 9 buses in 9 routes. The plan from the developed system needs only 7 buses in 7 routes, a saving around 22%. Furthermore, the total distance travelled by all buses is reduced from 231 km. to 211 km., or 8.47%. All savings are gained while all employees can get to work on time.
