SAV Operations on a Bus Line Corridor: Travel Demand, Service Frequency, and Vehicle Size

Kara M. Kockelman,Jing Zhao,Long T. Truong,Huang Yantao

doi:10.1155/2021/5577500

Abstract

Before shared automated vehicles (SAVs) can be widely adopted, they are anticipated to be implemented commercially in confined regions or fixed routes where the benefits of automation can be realized. SAVs have the potential to operate in a traditional transit corridor, replacing conventional transit vehicles, and have frequent interactions with riders and other vehicles sharing the same right of way. This paper microsimulates SAVs’ operation on a 6.5-mile corridor to understand how vehicle size and attributes of such SAV-based transit affect traffic, transit riders, and system costs. The SUMO (Simulation of Urban MObility) platform is employed to model microscopic interactions among SAVs, transit passengers, and other traffic. Results show that the use of smaller, but more frequent, SAVs leads to reduced passenger waiting times but increased vehicle travel times. More frequent services of smaller SAVs do not, in general, significantly affect general traffic due to shorter dwell times. Overall, using smaller SAVs instead of the large 40-seat SAVs can reduce system costs by up to 4% while also reducing passenger waiting times, under various demand levels and passenger loading factors. However, the use of 5-seat SAVs does not always have the lowest system costs.

Highlights

Automated vehicles (AVs) and shared mobility will fundamentally change the future traffic pattern, by providing cost, environmental, and safety benefits [1,2,3,4]
There would be differences in the lane-changing model between conventional vehicles, this study focuses on longitudinal effects instead of lateral effects. erefore, the lane-changing model is assumed to be LC2013, the default from Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) [29]. e dimensions of different Shared AVs (SAVs) sizes are determined by referring to existing vehicle sizes (Table 1), one may expect a different interior design for SAVs
Conventional vans have been used to provide mobility in confined regions like college campuses, military bases, airports, or business parks, where the SAVs are more likely to be in the early stages of implementation

Summary

Introduction

Automated vehicles (AVs) and shared mobility will fundamentally change the future traffic pattern, by providing cost, environmental, and safety benefits [1,2,3,4]. Shared AVs (SAVs) offer more potential benefits through a lower-cost on-demand service that can be flexible in both schedules and routes [5]. SAV tests are being performed worldwide, as people try to envision the emerging service format that SAVs can offer in both the near and far future [6]. 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 SAV demand (pax per hour) (b) 600 Hour. 1800 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 SAV demand (pax per hour)

Objectives

Results

Conclusion