Saw Vee-Liem, Vismara Luca, Chew Lock Yue
Division of Physics and Applied Physics, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, 21 Nanyang Link, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637371.
Chaos. 2021 Feb;31(2):023122. doi: 10.1063/5.0039989.
Urban mobility involves many interacting components: buses, cars, commuters, pedestrians, trains, etc., making it a very complex system to study. Even a bus system responsible for delivering commuters from their origins to their destinations in a loop service already exhibits very complicated dynamics. Here, we investigate the dynamics of a simplified version of such a bus loop system consisting of two buses serving three bus stops. Specifically, we consider a configuration of one bus operating as a normal bus that picks up passengers from bus stops A and B and then delivers them to bus stop C, while the second bus acts as an express bus that picks up passengers only from bus stop B and then delivers them to bus stop C. The two buses are like asymmetric agents coupled to bus stop B as they interact via picking up passengers from this common bus stop. Intriguingly, this semi-express bus configuration is more efficient and has a lower average waiting time for buses compared to a configuration of two normal buses or a configuration of two express buses. We reckon that the efficiency arises from the chaotic dynamics exhibited in the semi-express system, where the tendency toward anti-bunching is greater than that toward bunching, in contradistinction to the regular bunching behavior of two normal buses or the independent periodic behavior of two non-interacting express buses.
公交车、汽车、通勤者、行人、火车等，这使得它成为一个非常复杂的研究系统。即使是一个负责以循环服务将通勤者从出发地送到目的地的公交系统，也已经展现出非常复杂的动态特性。在此，我们研究这样一个公交环线系统简化版本的动态特性，该系统由两辆公交车服务三个公交站点组成。具体而言，我们考虑一种配置，其中一辆公交车作为普通公交车运行，从公交站点A和B接载乘客，然后将他们送到公交站点C，而第二辆公交车作为特快公交车运行，仅从公交站点B接载乘客，然后将他们送到公交站点C。这两辆公交车就像与公交站点B耦合的不对称主体，因为它们通过从这个共同的公交站点接载乘客而相互作用。有趣的是，与两辆普通公交车的配置或两辆特快公交车的配置相比，这种半特快公交配置效率更高，公交车的平均等待时间更低。我们认为这种效率源于半特快系统中表现出的混沌动态特性，其中反聚集趋势大于聚集趋势，这与两辆普通公交车的规则聚集行为或两辆不相互作用的特快公交车的独立周期性行为形成对比。
