Carpooling in Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: Current Solutions and Future Directions

Owing to the advancements in communication and computation technologies, the dream of commercialized connected and autonomous cars is becoming a reality. However, among other challenges such as environmental pollution, cost, maintenance, security, and privacy, the ownership of vehicles (especially for Autonomous Vehicles) is the major obstacle in the realization of this technology at the commercial level. Furthermore, the business model of pay-as-you-go type services further attracts the consumer, because there is no need for upfront investment. In this vein, the idea of car-sharing (aka carpooling) is getting ground due to, at least in part, its simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and affordable choice of transportation. Carpooling systems are still in their infancy and face challenges such as scheduling, matching passengers interests, business model, security, privacy, and communication. To date, a plethora of research work has already been done covering different aspects of carpooling services (ranging from applications to communication and technologies); however, there is still a lack of a holistic, comprehensive survey that can be a one-stop-shop for the researchers in this area to (i) find all the relevant information and (ii) identify the future research directions. To fill these research challenges, this article provides a comprehensive survey on carpooling in autonomous and connected vehicles and covers architecture, components, and solutions, including scheduling, matching, mobility, pricing models of carpooling. We also discuss the current challenges in carpooling and identify future research directions. This survey is aimed to spur further discussion among the research community for the effective realization of carpooling.