Time Use Survey: The Italian Contribution to the European Programme. Methodological Note.

The design of the diary is an important moment in the preparation of the Time Use survey. The main aspects of the diaries were analysed as part of the Time Use laboratory set up in Italy by the National Statistical Institute (ISTAT) as part of the Multipurpose survey design.In 1995, the European programme called Italy and Sweden for pre-tests, countries chosen especially for their social and cultural differences: the former, a typically Mediterranean European country and the latter with the features of Northern Europe.In 1996, in the period between June and September a pilot survey was carried out.The main goals of the pilot survey was to verify the methodological solutions adopted by the Eurostat working group, following the discussion on the results of the pre-tests carried out in Italy and Sweden.     

Recoverable robust timetabling for single delay: Complexity and polynomial algorithms for special cases

In this paper, we study the problem of planning a timetable for passenger trains considering that possible delays might occur due to unpredictable circumstances. If a delay occurs, a timetable could not be able to manage it unless some extra time has been scheduled in advance. Delays might be managed in several ways and the usual objective function considered for such purpose is the minimization of the overall waiting time caused to passengers. We analyze the timetable planning problem in terms of the recoverable robustness model, where a timetable is said to be recoverable robust if it is able to absorb small delays by possibly applying given limited recovery capabilities. The quality of a robust timetable is measured by the price of robustness that is the ratio between the cost of the recoverable robust timetable and that of a non-robust optimal one.