Leveraging Shared Autonomous Electric Vehicles for First/Last Mile Mobility

The convergence of self-driving and electric vehicle technology also holds great promise for transforming urban land use (in an on-demand carsharing platform with decreased parking infrastructure) and alleviating congestion (in a dynamic ridesharing platform with increased vehicle occupancy). However, it is still unclear how Shared Autonomous Electric Vehicles (SAEVs) will compete with or complement existing public transit services. In this paper, a simulation framework is proposed to evaluate SAEV operations that center around Tukwila transit station to provide commuters first- and last-mile mobility in the Seattle metro. The study shows great potential for leveraging SAEVs to increasing the catchment area around the transit station resulting in reduced demand for park and ride infrastructure. The results demonstrate that the proposed SAEV fleet can reduce system-wide VMT by 36.65% through ridesharing. The use of fast charging (FC) technology (30 minutes to 80% full charge) effectively decreases the fleet size and wait time by 56% and 72.97%, respectively. It is observed that the advantage of being able to serve trips located far from transit station is diminished for long-range SAEVs serving short trips, however they can mitigate the congestion associated with vehicle charging at transit stations. Decision makers can apply this framework for their locality and evaluate this new service by comparing scenarios with varying vehicle configuration, vehicle capacity, and charging infrastructure.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP040 Standing Committee on Automated Transit Systems. Leveraging Shared Autonomous Electric Vehicles for First- and Last-Mile Mobility: This is an alternative title.
• Authors:
  • Farhan, J
  • Chen, T Donna
  • Zhang, Zhouyi
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 18p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Electric vehicles; Intelligent vehicles; Rail transit stations; Vehicle sharing
• Geographic Terms: Puget Sound Region; Tukwila (Washington State)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Public Transportation; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01663705
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-06633
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 22 2018 11:57AM