Examining the effects of autonomous vehicle ride sharing services on fixed-route public transit

Abstract

With the increased development of new transportation technologies such as autonomous vehicles and ridesharing fleet services comes the possibility of a new mode of transportation: autonomous vehicle ridesharing services (AVRS). The speed, convenience, accessibility, and low cost that AVRS is likely to offer will put it in competition with traditional fixed-route transit services. The effect of this competition is studied through the use of a four-step transportation demand model applied to hypothetical idealized urban networks. Under the assumptions that AVRS will cost 9% less per kilometer than owning and operating a personal automobile, that the AVRS service will have average wait times of 7 minutes, and that transit systems remain as they currently exist, the presence of AVRS in the network leads to an average loss per transit route of 49% of passenger-kilometers. Important transit route properties that correlate with decrease in passenger-kilometers include the passenger-kilometers before the introduction of AVRS and the headway. Additional effects of the introduction of AVRS could include an increase in delay due to congestion, an increase in travel times, and an increase in vehicle-kilometers travelled.