Case Study: National Institutes of Health streamlines campus bus routing with Simio

NIH streamlines campus bus routing for 75+ buildings with Simio

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) needed to redesign its campus shuttle bus system to accommodate uncertain demand patterns as employees returned to work post-COVID. Using the Simio simulation software, the challenge was to create a flexible model that could efficiently test various bus quantities and schedules without the inefficiency of manually rebuilding complex, pre-built routing constructs for each scenario.

The solution implemented with Simio focused on creating smart data structures, specifically an array that dynamically generated the full bus schedule at model initialization. This approach, built from lower-level constructs rather than pre-configured modules, resulted in a model that was faster to develop, easier to debug, and more flexible. The Simio model provided NIH with a streamlined tool to understand the impact of different shuttle system designs, enabling data-driven decisions for safe and efficient campus transportation.

National Institutes of Health (NIH)