S-106-V2-EN
The Depot Vehicle Allocation preference controls whether or not the optimization engine can create circular vehicle depots.
A circular vehicle depot is when a vehicle starts and ends its day in the same depot.
A non-circular depot means that vehicles can end their day in a different depot than where they started.
Setup
This is a templated preference, however, there is only one template that lets you set the circularity parameter to Yes or No. If you do not use a template, the preference will default to Yes, meaning circular depots are allowed.
To use the preference, follow these steps:
While in your schedule, open Preferences.
Find and click Depot Vehicle Allocation in the Depots section.
Click Load Template.
Go to the Optibus tab and click Vehicle depot circularity, then click Apply.
Set the parameter to Yes or No.
Note: if you go with non-circular depots, the number of vehicles starting the day in a certain depot must be the same as the number of vehicles that end the day in that depot.
The depot capacity must be balanced to maintain a schedule that can be operated day by day.
For example, if all your vehicles start Monday in depot A and finish in depot B, you will not have any vehicles in depot A to operate on Tuesday.
This does not apply to cases when you have two consecutive days that are not repeatable and therefore do not require the same number of vehicles at the start and the end of the day. Adjustments in this case must be made manually.
Validations
If circular depots are set, the vehicles that violate the rule will show up under Vehicle issues with the following message:
Does not finish at the same depot that it starts in, start depot is [ ] and end depot is [ ] - Vehicle #
If non-circular depot are set, the validation panel will show unbalanced depots under Global issues if there are any:
Depot [ ] has unbalanced pull-outs [ ] and pull-ins [ ] for vehicle type [ ]