Uncongested Mobility for All: A Proposal for an Area Wide Autonomous Taxi System in New Jersey

Abstract

This paper examines the feasibility of assembling a fleet of autonomous taxis (aTaxis) in the state of New Jersey to provide personalized, automated, direct, and demand-responsive transportation. Such aTaxis provide auto-like service where demand is diffuse in space and time while facilitating casual ridesharing to serve demand that happens to be correlated spatially and temporally. This casual ridesharing substantially improves transportation efficiency and eliminates congestion. A key component of this undertaking is the synthesis of the travel behavior of each of the roughly eight million individuals in New Jersey. This trip data can be used to inform a simulation of the servicing of travel demand. About two million trips are less than a mile and are readily served by walking and biking. The remaining thirty million trips are served by aTaxis. In the aTaxi system, a grid of quarter square mile pixels overlays New Jersey; each pixel contains an aTaxiStand to and from which passengers ride the aTaxi. Results show that denser locations during peak hours have substantial ridesharing potential that would correspondingly decongest roadways while delivering excellent mobility at reduced energy and environmental consequences.