Thread by @AleTirachini

1. During my sabbatical year in Germany (2019) I have been doing research about the effects of vehicle automation on public transport. Now that our first paper is published, I will explain the idea and findings.

(video: #robobus in Helsinki)

2. The research question we addressed is the following:

Is a cost reduction expected due to automation? And if so, who should benefit from it and how?

3. With automation, two elements push public transport cost in opposite directions: there is a benefit if the cost of drivers is (at least partially) saved, but there is an expense because of the extra cost to provide vehicles with automation capabilities.

4. The extra cost of vehicle automation is expected to significantly go down in the coming decades, as different estimations show. Therefore this effect will be diluted over time.

(Figure: Estimations of additional vehicle cost to have full automation capabilities)

5. On the other hand, the cost of drivers is around 1/3 of total bus operator cost in Santiago and between 40 and 70% (depending on vehicle size) in rich countries like Australia and Singapore. Therefore, potential savings are huge...

6. But will all drivers lose their jobs one day due to automation? Likely not, there are several reasons why this scenario is unlikely: automation itself generates the need of new jobs (in back office, to assist riders with information, for boarding/alighting, etc).

7. Moreover, where personal security is a concern, it is unclear whether passengers will feel comfortable to ride buses with no driver, even if the vehicle is equipped with cameras, panic buttons, etc.

8. Another source of uncertainty is in which places automated vehicles will be able to run at a reasonable speed in cities? (highways, of course, is a different story).

All current automated shuttle pilots are slow, running at no more than 20 km/h in areas with little traffic.

9. At present, the suitability of automated vehicles in dense city areas, with large flows of other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists is unclear.

10. Current wisdom suggests that dedicated roads that eliminate or largely reduce interactions between automated vehicles and pedestrians, cyclists and other vehs are better suited for the deployment of automated vehicles. Here is where automated public transport enters the scene

11. We formulated a model that minimises the total cost of a public transport service, which comprises the operator cost (capital plus operating cost) and the monetised travel time of users (waiting time plus travel time in-vehicle).

12. The model is solved comparing the case of human-driven and automated vehicles, and applied to two countries- Chile and Germany- as illustrative of developed and developing economies. Electric vehicles are used.

13. Automation scenarios include cases with partial driving cost savings and reduced running speed for
automated vehicles, due to the reasons explained before.

14. Findings

We found that a potential reduction in vehicle operating cost due to automation benefits three parties:

i. The bus operators, through a reduction of operator costs.

ii. The users, because part of that cost saving is transferred as a reduction on the optimal fare per trip. Moreover, automation implies that it is optimal to increase service frequencies, i.e., to have more and smaller vehicles, therefore there is a reduction of waiting times.

iii. The public sector, because the optimal subsidy per trip also goes down if automation realises its potential to reduce operator costs.

15. We also quantified that the potential benefits of vehicle automation (as explained in point 14) are larger in Germany than in Chile, due to the role of drivers’ salaries.

16. The fact that it is optimal to have smaller vehicles due to driving cost savings also points to the convenience of on-demand door-to-door services in low-traffic, low-density areas, although this case was not directly analised in the paper (we are starting to work on it).

17. Full or partial automation and the technology of connected vehicles have also several operational benefits for public transport, due to the elimination of bus bunching, better synchronisation with traffic signals, eco-driving and energy consumption savings, etc.

18. The full paper is published in Economics of Transportation and has free-access for 50 days in this link:

authors.elsevier.com/a/1aHOZ7sz0waV…

Thread end.

@Transport_ELS