MPC Research Reports |
Title: | Exploratory Modeling and Analysis for Automated Vehicles in Utah |
Authors: | Xiaoyue "Cathy" Liu and Nima Haghighi |
University: | University of Utah |
Publication Date: | Mar 2022 |
Report #: | MPC-22-452 |
Project #: | MPC-542 |
TRID #: | 01843778 |
Keywords: | autonomous vehicles, forecasting, shared mobility, travel demand |
Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) have the potential to offer benefits and flexibility in travel, which can lead to significant reductions in the generalized travel cost and possibly, more demand. The combination of the AV technology with Mobility as a Service (MaaS) creates a new disruptive transportation mode – Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs) that have the promise to re-define the transportation landscape by improving mobility and competing with conventional transportation modes. While SAVs could potentially be on the market in the near future, the long-range transportation planning process has yet to account for their impact. We fill this gap by presenting a framework of modeling SAVs to seamlessly integrate them into the four-step travel demand models widely used by transportation agencies. Using the Wasatch Front region in the State of Utah as a case study, this project presents such modeling effort for the year 2040 forecast horizon. Delineated by different combinations of trip growth rates and SAV market attractiveness, the designed scenarios revealed that SAVs could increase the total number of trips by 1%–7%. SAVs could shift travel away from conventional transportation modes. It is estimated that SAVs will increase daily Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) by 4%–9% across designed scenarios due to improved mobility of underserved populations and additional repositioning trips. The results will assist public agencies in understanding the impacts of SAVs on travel patterns to further consider the special needs of AV technology in long-range cost estimates and programming processes.
Liu, Xiaoyue "Cathy", and Nima Haghighi. Exploratory Modeling and Analysis for Automated Vehicles in Utah, MPC-22-452. North Dakota State University - Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, Fargo: Mountain-Plains Consortium, 2022.