Personal mobility

Abstract: The objective of this work is to provide analytical guidelines and financial justification for the design of shared-vehicle mobility-on-demand systems Specifically, we consider the fundamental issue of determining the appropriate number of vehicles to field in the fleet, and estimate the financial benefits of several models of car sharing As a case study, we consider replacing all modes of personal transportation in a city such as Singapore with a fleet of shared automated vehicles, able to drive themselves, eg, to move to a customer’s location Using actual transportation data, our analysis suggests a shared-vehicle mobility solution can meet the personal mobility needs of the entire population with a fleet whose size is approximately 1/3 of the total number of passenger vehicles currently in operation

Abstract: Information and communication technologies have opened the way to new solutions for urban mobility that provide better ways to match individuals with on-demand vehicles. However, a fundamental unsolved problem is how best to size and operate a fleet of vehicles, given a certain demand for personal mobility. Previous studies1-5 either do not provide a scalable solution or require changes in human attitudes towards mobility. Here we provide a network-based solution to the following 'minimum fleet problem', given a collection of trips (specified by origin, destination and start time), of how to determine the minimum number of vehicles needed to serve all the trips without incurring any delay to the passengers. By introducing the notion of a 'vehicle-sharing network', we present an optimal computationally efficient solution to the problem, as well as a nearly optimal solution amenable to real-time implementation. We test both solutions on a dataset of 150 million taxi trips taken in the city of New York over one year 6 . The real-time implementation of the method with near-optimal service levels allows a 30 per cent reduction in fleet size compared to current taxi operation. Although constraints on driver availability and the existence of abnormal trip demands may lead to a relatively larger optimal value for the fleet size than that predicted here, the fleet size remains robust for a wide range of variations in historical trip demand. These predicted reductions in fleet size follow directly from a reorganization of taxi dispatching that could be implemented with a simple urban app; they do not assume ride sharing7-9, nor require changes to regulations, business models, or human attitudes towards mobility to become effective. Our results could become even more relevant in the years ahead as fleets of networked, self-driving cars become commonplace10-14.

Abstract: In this paper, we review some advances made recently in the study of mobile phone datasets. This area of research has emerged a decade ago, with the increasing availability of large-scale anonymized datasets, and has grown into a stand-alone topic. We will survey the contributions made so far on the social networks that can be constructed with such data, the study of personal mobility, geographical partitioning, urban planning, and help towards development as well as security and privacy issues.

Abstract: This book provides a vision for a new automobile era. It describes how the cars driven today follow the same underlying design principles as the Model Ts of a hundred years ago and the tail-finned sedans of fifty years ago. In the twenty-first century, cars are still made for twentieth-century purposes. They're well suited for conveying multiple passengers over long distances at high speeds, but inefficient for providing personal mobility within cities—where most of the world's people now live. This path-breaking book is describing vehicles of the near future that are green, smart, connected, and fun to drive. They roll out four big ideas that will make this both feasible and timely. First, the authors transform the DNA of the automobile, basing it on electric-drive and wireless communication rather than on petroleum, the internal combustion engine, and stand-alone operation. This allows vehicles to become lighter, cleaner, and "smart" enough to avoid crashes and traffic jams. Second, automobiles need to be linked by a Mobility Internet that allows them to collect and share data on traffic conditions, intelligently coordinates their movements, and keeps drivers connected to their social networks. Third, automobiles must be recharged through a convenient, cost-effective infrastructure that is integrated with smart electric grids and makes increasing use of renewable energy sources. Finally, dynamically priced markets for electricity, road space, parking space, and shared-use vehicles must be introduced to provide optimum management of urban mobility and energy systems. The fundamental reinvention of the automobile won't be easy, but it is an urgent necessity—to make urban mobility more convenient and sustainable, to make cities more livable, and to help bring the automobile industry out of crisis.