Fleet-size-and-mix and operations management of autonomous e-vehicles in rural areas

与城市地区相比，向生活在农村地区的人提供的流动服务数量相当有限。这主要是因为人口密度相对较低，这阻碍了密集和频繁的公共交通服务的经济运作。此外，由于平均需求密度低，汽车共享、拼车和替代系统几乎不可用。因此，现在农村地区的人口不得不使用私家车来满足他们的出行需求。与此同时，每次出行出发地和目的地之间的距离较远，导致个人出行需求较高，再加上出行服务匮乏，对这些地区的生活质量产生了负面影响。在拟议的研究项目中，我们希望研究如何设计一个创新的移动服务系统，通过自动驾驶电动汽车在农村地区提供移动服务。我们考虑一个基于平台的移动服务系统，在这个系统中，一家公司为一个地区提供这样的车队，并使用这些车辆来满足客户的要求。该计划将着重探讨如何适当地安排车辆规模，以及如何有效地管理车辆营运，以建立一个有效率的流动服务系统。现有的自动驾驶汽车移动系统研究主要集中在城市地区，与农村地区相比，城市地区的高需求密度、大车队和短距离构成了完全不同的移动管理条件。所调查的系统基于响应性的、临时的请求实现，这些请求在短时间内宣布。相比之下，农村地区距离较远，客户需要提前充分沟通他们的要求，并对车辆的运行进行详细规划。为此，本研究项目旨在开发农村地区自动驾驶电动汽车车队运营管理的优化模型和解决方法，并回答有关适当车队规模和车辆组合的问题。我们将把注意力放在复杂的移动服务上，例如，去某个目的地的旅行需要与时移的回程相结合。这些服务需要仔细地同步服务操作和车辆。该方法将进一步支持预订机制、被动和主动车辆重新部署以及订单接受决策。将开发一个模拟系统，以确定有关的系统设计方案，并评价由此产生的机动服务系统的性能。

In contrast to urban areas, the amount of mobility services that are offered to people living in rural areas is quite limited. This is mostly because of the relatively low population density, which hampers economic operations of dense and frequent public transport services. Also car-sharing, ride-sharing, and alternative systems are hardly available because of the low average demand density. Therefore, the population in rural areas has to use privately-owned cars for fulfilling their mobility demands nowadays. At the same time, large distances between origins and destinations per trip cause a high individual mobility demand, which, in combination with little mobility offerings impacts the quality of life negatively in such regions. In the proposed research project, we want to investigate how to design an innovative mobility service system that offers mobility services by autonomous, electric vehicles in rural areas. We consider a platform-based mobility service system, where a company provides a fleet of such vehicles for a region and uses these vehicles for fulfilling customer requests. The project will focus on questions addressing a suitable dimensioning of vehicle fleets together with an effective vehicle operations management with the goal to establish an efficient mobility service system. The existing research on mobility systems with autonomous vehicles has concentrated on urban areas, where high demand density, large vehicle fleets, and short distances constitute completely differing conditions for mobility management compared to rural areas. The investigated systems are based on a reactive, ad-hoc fulfillment of requests that are announced on short notice. In contrast, the long distances in rural areas necessitate that customers communicate their requests in advance with a sufficient lead-time and that vehicle operations are planned in detail. For this purpose, the research project aims at developing optimization models and solution methods for the operations management of fleets of autonomous e-vehicles in rural areas and at answering questions regarding an appropriate fleet size and vehicle-mix. We will put attention on complex mobility services where, for example, a trip to some destination needs to be combined with a time-shifted return trip. These services demand a careful synchronization of service operations and vehicles. The methodology will furthermore support reservation mechanisms, reactive and proactive vehicle relocations, and order acceptance decisions. A simulation system will be developed for the identification of relevant system design options and for the evaluation of the performance of the resulting mobility service system.