Bus Routing Safety for the Transportation of Children to School

The school transportation has a lot of hidden issues that make it difficult to be organized and managed (i.e. safety, punctuality, time, etc.). This paper analyses the school bus routing problem and proposes routing algorithms that could be applied when planning transportation for students who go to school using school buses. Furthermore, this paper proposes a routing methodology for pedestrians (from home to the bus stop and school bus), in order to provide to children a safer and more efficient way to school from door to door. Also, various solving algorithms are used, presenting a good performance (the genetic algorithm present up to 12 % overestimation of distance in relation to the best solution, with an average overestimation of 5 %) and are being compared for a real case, taking into account the safety framework presented in this paper. These algorithms have been developed within the context of the European Project SAFEWAY2SCHOOL.