Identifying the Potential for Partial Integration of Private and Public Transportation

Iva Bojic,Wei Tu,Dániel Kondor,Ke Mai,Paolo Santi,Carlo Ratti

doi:10.3390/su13063424

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the potential for a partial integration of private and public transportation as provided by taxi and bus services on the level of individual trips. While these modes are typically separated for economic reasons, in the future with shared Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) providing cheap and efficient transportation services, such distinctions will blur. Consequently, optimization based on real-time data will allow exploiting parallels in demand in a dynamic way, such as the proposed approach in the current work. New operational and pricing strategies will then need to be considered, along with regulatory tools to limit congestion, encourage sharing and provide services in a more sustainable way by utilizing a dynamic landscape of urban transportation. In the current work, we evaluate existing parallels between individual bus and taxi trips in two Asian cities and show how exploiting these synergies could form the basis of achieving some of the above goals in the future.

Highlights

IntroductionIn today’s transportation industry, there is a large operational gap between private end-to-end services such as taxis
While the former provide more convenience for passengers and usually a significantly shorter travel time at a higher price, the latter operate on inflexible schedules and routes, with many intermediate stops that slow down the service, but at a significantly lower cost
We aim to answer the following two research questions in this paper: (i) what is the percentage of public transportation passengers who could be matched with the private transportation passengers; and (ii) what is the benefit for matched passengers, measured as average travel time savings

Summary

Introduction

In today’s transportation industry, there is a large operational gap between private end-to-end services such as taxis Due to these reasons, some authors consider taxis as part of public transportation. For the purposes of the current work, we believe the important distinction is along the lines presented here.) and ridesharing, and fixed-route public transportation such as buses and subways [1,2] While the former provide more convenience for passengers and usually a significantly shorter travel time at a higher price, the latter operate on inflexible schedules and routes, with many intermediate stops that slow down the service, but at a significantly lower cost. Due to the large increase of vehicles on roads, cities around the world face significant problems due to congestion; in peak hours, public transportation options can provide a shorter travel time when separated from general traffic [4]

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