Pandey, Praveen Kumar (Polytechnique Montreal), Hassan, Rakibul (Polytechnique Montréal), Ciari, Francesco (Polytechnique Montreal)

Sizing Autonomous Vehicle's Fleets for Cities Considering Intercity Trips

Scheduled for presentation during the Invited Session "Large-scale Smart Mobility" (FrAT2), Friday, September 27, 2024, 11:30−11:50, Salon 5

2024 IEEE 27th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), September 24- 27, 2024, Edmonton, Canada

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on October 14, 2024

Abstract

We address two typical limitations of the existing literature on shared autonomous vehicle (SAV) fleets sizing. First, sizing is usually done based on average-day travel demand, without considering demand fluctuations. Second, sizing is done for a city, region, or in the rare cases dealing with long-distance travel, corridor. In the optic of a seamless and ubiquitous SAV system, though, one should clarify how systems catering to distinct locations should interact, or even be merged, and how this impacts sizing. With the main goal of demonstrating the relevance and magnitude of both issues, we simulate a hypothetical scenario with two locations and a bi-directional demand that varies over time. Assuming demand to be completely fulfilled by SAV, we show the fleet size needed to carry out both inter-city and intra-city trips. Variables of the exercise are arrival and departure rates, distance between the locations in terms of one-way trip time, and fleet management strategies (single or multiple operators). In the numerical experiments with Gaussian distributed arrivals and departures, we observe that demand shifts impact the size needed for a certain level of service in a nonlinear, over-proportionate way. The impact is stronger if multiple operators are considered.