Intelligent transport design with a dual focus: Tourist experience and operating cost

Considering further improvements in the intelligent transportation in tourist attraction management is highly appealing. Inspired by the success of the ride-sharing platform, this study designs an intelligent transport system for attractions that can effectively generate user demand-oriented vehicle operation schemes and timely adjust the scheme to match dynamic requests. The system's core components are a vehicle operation scheme optimization module based on an improved heuristic approach and an adaptive updating module that follows time- and quantity-driven rules. Results of a case study in Xiamen indicate that our system significantly outperforms existing systems in improving tourist experience and saving transport operating costs and can provide more diversified and flexible vehicle operation schemes, thereby contributing to economic, social, and environmental benefits. [Display omitted] •Offering insights into improving transport management of tourist attraction•Designing an on-demand, flexible, and dynamic tourist transport system•Incorporating dynamism of tourist behavior into vehicle operation scheme design•Proposing a novel improved heuristic algorithm to optimize feasible schemes.•Developing an adaptive update strategy to make reactions to dynamic ride requests