Simulation of the Daily Activity Plans of Travelers Using the Park-and-Ride System and Autonomous Vehicles: Work and Shopping Trip Purposes

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.

Potential Travel Time Reduction with Autonomous Vehicles for Different Types of Travellers

“…The scenarios of group (a) are (1) travellers who travel more than 40 minutes within one trip including the users of all transport modes, (2) travellers who travel more than 40 minutes excluding users of walking and cycling, and (3) travellers who travel at least 10 km in one trip, regardless of transport mode type. Scenarios of group (b) are (4) AVs as a feeder system from home to the nearest public transport stop, and from public transport stop home replace four conventional cars and a study conducted in Hungary showed that the workers and shoppers who use park-and-ride system, would use AVs instead of their conventional cars [20,21].…”

Mapping the Catchment Area of Park and Ride Facilities within Urban Environments

“…As is widely considered, P & R systems have played an essential role in the encouragement of the shift of passengers from private vehicles to public transportation [12,13,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Therefore, the facility's location is close to the public transport system stops.…”

“…The authors have contributed to research on the Park and Ride system in a project called "An integrated study of Park and Ride (P & R) facilities for sustainable urban mobility". The previous research already published corresponds to the interaction of conventional and autonomous vehicles with the Park and Ride system [12], in addition to the development of an integral model of the P & R system that allows for the determination of which facility is the most attractive based on the potential demand [13]. Moreover, multi-criteria methods were used to determine a facility location problem and in which experts determined that the criteria of accessibility to public transportation is the most important when implementing a P & R system [14].…”

Using Best Worst Method for Sustainable Park and Ride Facility Location

“…This article is part of a project where the authors work to investigate a P&R system and its different variables; thus, the authors have already made previous publications as part of an integrated analysis of P&R [15][16][17]. Consequently, transport specialists have started to use multi-criteria decision-making applications (MCDM) to provide solutions to issues and increase the quality for citizens through transport initiatives.…”