Overview of a dynamic evaluation of collective taxi systems providing an optimal performance

Abstract

When considering the need for an intelligent transportation mode based upon the fact that car travel is still the consumer's first choice, we decided to explore the idea of collective taxis. More precisely, we are seeking to provide an autonomous high quality door-to-door service, affordable by almost everyone, covering the entire urban area, simply by allocating in an optimal way more than one passenger to each vehicle and using the latest available information regarding traffic conditions, etc. Because this system is far less unconstrained than most public transportation systems, it has high potentialities in terms of performance and flexibility, but it is consequently very difficult to manage and to design optimally. Therefore, we present a discrete event simulation tool and show how it can be used to conceive, optimise and compare decision algorithms, achieve sound trade-off between conflicting performance indicators and assess the efficiency of the system in various contexts.