Abstract
The preferences of travelers determines the utility of daily activity plans. Decision-makers can affect the preference of travelers when they force private car users to use park-and-ride (P&R) facilities as a way of decreasing traffic in city centers. The P&R system has been shown to be effective in reducing uninterrupted increases in traffic congestion, especially in city centers. Therefore, the impacts of P&R on travel behavior and the daily activity plans of both worker and shopper travelers were studied in this paper. Moreover, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are a promising technology for the coming decade. A simulation of the AV as part of a multimodal system, when the P&R system was integrated in the daily activity plans, was carried out to determine the required AV fleet size needed to fulfill a certain demand and to study the impacts of AVs on the behavior of travelers (trip time and distance). Specifically, a group of travelers, who use private cars as their transport mode, was studied, and certain modifications to their daily activity plans, including P&R facilities and changing their transport mode, were introduced. Using the MATSim open-source tool, four scenarios were simulated based on the mentioned modifications. The four scenarios included (1) a simulation of the existing transport modes of the travelers, (2) a simulation of their daily activity plans when their transport modes were changed to AVs, (3) a simulation of the travelers, when P&R facilities were included in their activity chain plans, and (4) a simulation of their daily activity plans, when both P&R and AVs were included in their activity chain plans. The result showed that using the P&R system increased overall travel time, compared with using a private car. The results also demonstrated that using AVs as a replacement for conventional cars reduced travel time. In conclusion, the impact of P&R and AVs on the travel behavior of certain travelers was evaluated in this paper.
Highlights
Travel time is a derived demand, which can be generated from various activities that travelers can engage in
The results demonstrated that using autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a replacement for conventional cars reduced travel time
Different solutions can be used in the case of travelers who must travel for a long time to reach the city center and are more willing to use their cars, instead of other available transport modes, such as public transport
Summary
Travel time is a derived demand, which can be generated from various activities that travelers can engage in. Traffic congestion has been increasing for a long time, and it is always concentrated in city centers, where all major activities take place. One effective solution that can help city planners to reduce the number of moving cars in the inner streets of a city is making a kind of restriction on the use of cars inside the city center, such as parking pricing. Different solutions can be used in the case of travelers who must travel for a long time to reach the city center and are more willing to use their cars, instead of other available transport modes, such as public transport. The park-and-ride (P&R) system involves constructing parking facilities outside of the city center, and these facilities should be located very
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