Abstract
This paper conducts a simulation study of low-speed Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), referred to as “pods”, platooning in shared urban environments. The proposed on-demand transport service can help solve the “last mile” challenge and improve mobility for non-drivers, elderly, and disabled people. To help the industry understands the dynamic system for deployment, this paper provides a practical prospect for pod platooning without prior planning. We designed a simulation system for the new transport. Non-homogenous Poisson processes were adopted to simulate arrivals of user requests. A three-density-zone map was designed from real-world city layouts. Practical time and location patterns of user demand were used. The supervision cost reduction as a benefit of platooning was estimated. System performance and user experience were evaluated. We identified how deployment can influence platooning. We found that platooning can reduce supervision cost by approximately 20% and 14%, during peak times on weekdays and midday on weekends respectively.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 100062 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Transportation Engineering |
Volume | 4 |
Early online date | 2 Mar 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jun 2021 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)Funder
This work has been carried out as part of the Self-organising Wide area Autonomous vehicle Real-time Marshalling (SWARM) project. The project was funded by Innovate UK , the UK’s innovation agency, under the grant ref. 103287 , and is a collaboration between RDM Ltd., University of Warwick, and Milton Keynes Council.Keywords
- Electric Autonomous Vehicle
- Monte Carlo Simulation
- Platooning
- Uncertainty
- Urban transport
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Aerospace Engineering
- Automotive Engineering
- Civil and Structural Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering
- Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality