An Autonomous Modular Vehicle Technology-based Multifaceted Mobility Service Paradigm – A Proof-of-Concept Study.
National Science Foundation EAGER Program, 2021 – 2023.
In the U.S., public transit vehicles have on average a very low load factor (10.1% ~ 12.4%), resulting excessive waste of seat capacity and extremely poor fuel economy per passenger mile served by buses . This problem is gravely exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic with a 76% reduction in transit trips nationwide, and threatens the existence of transit service unless drastic changes take place soon. On the other hand, the e-commerce boom, which rapidly accelerated during the pandemic, has put tremendous pressure on last-mile delivery. A co-modality system that integrates transit services with last mile logistics offers a promising solution to better utilization/sharing of vehicle capacity and supporting infrastructure. Yet, the implementation of this idea requires not only technological breakthrough, but also a system approach that transcends the boundaries of the two highly siloed sectors in the transportation industry.
Autonomous Modular Vehicle Technology (AMVT) promises an exciting opportunity for a co-modality mobility system as well as value-added services such as mobile pharmacy and mobile charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs). Such an AMVT-based multifaceted mobility service (AMVT-MMS) is flexible and customizable due to its two attractive features: modularity and autonomy. Modularity means flexible vehicle capacity in response to passenger/goods demand by forming or breaking off pod trains in real time – a pod is an AMVT vehicle. Autonomous vehicles are widely expected to be a game changer in transportation. Coupling modularity and autonomy, AMVT is poised to shape the evolution of the current transportation paradigm. Yet, AMVT involves tradeoffs that are not well understood, let alone fully accounted for. For example, while pod trains offer flexibility and aerodynamic benefit, they may disrupt traffic when they are formed and broken off. Thus, it is unclear that a modularized fleet would necessarily outperform existing transit systems for meeting the demand, especially during peak hours.
As the first step toward understanding the fundamental trade-offs in an AMVT-MMS system and gauging potential stakeholders’ interest and reaction to the technology itself and the real-world prospect of the envisioned AMVT-MMS, this EAGER project will focus on two primary applications of AMVT – public transit and last-mile logistics, separately and integrally. We refer to this subsystem of AMVT-MMS as AMVT-based bi-modality system, or AMVT-BM. Specifically, this study will address two most fundamental questions: (1) what are the impacts of co-modality and modularity on system performance? And (2) what are synergistic potential and adoption challenges from the perspective of stakeholders such as transit agencies, urban planners, logistics companies, transportation network companies, and auto makers? The study consists of two tasks addressing the two fundamental research questions above. Task 1 investigates the impacts of modularity (Tasks 1a and 1b) and co-modality (Task 1c) via analysis and simulation. Task 2 recruits and surveys potential stakeholders for their views on a wide range of issues related to the adoption of AMVT-BM.