Sustainability, Scalability, and Resiliency of the Town of Innisfil Mobility-on-Demand Experiment: Preliminary Results, Analyses, and Lessons Learned

In 2017, the town of Innisfil, Ontario, launched Innisfil Transit in partnership with Uber, a transportation network company, to provide a subsidized on-demand public mobility service as an alternative to investing in a new fixed-route bus service. The performance of Innisfil Transit is documented in a 2021 Ryerson University report by Sweet, Mitra, and Benaroya, which shows greater cost effectiveness of the mobility provided over the proposed bus alternative. This paper expands on those findings by assessing Innisfil Transit with respect to sustainability, scalability, and resiliency. First, we quantify the energy and emissions of this program relative to traditional transit and driving alone across varying powertrains. We then characterize a conservative firstorder estimate of the percentage of US communities that fall within a similar spatial-demographic tier as Innisfil. Replicability also hinges on service cost and performance in comparison to average values for low-density transit in the US. Lastly, most transit agencies experienced a significant drop in demand (as much as 90%) with slowly rebounding ridership since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The resiliency of the Innisfil program to the pressures induced by the pandemic is examined in comparison to other transit operations. The lessons learned across these three dimensions complement prior work to better understand the efficiency and sustainability of on-demand public mobility service for low-density communities like Innisfil.

Sharing: Attitudes and Perceptions

Emerging shared mobility services refer to the shared used of travel modes such as a car or a micromobility vehicle that grant users short term, on-demand access to these travel options. Particularly in the last decade, shared mobility services, largely enabled by smartphone technology, have considerably changed the landscape of the transportation system. As the public is learning and adapting to these new mobility options, urban transportation systems are bending toward a service-oriented framework. Public attitudes and perceptions of these novel travel modes play a determining role in adoption of transportation services are constantly evolving with changes in the vehicle technology and service models of shared mobility services. This, however, presents the interesting opportunity to examine how the public understands transportation and shared mobility, a lens through which lessons can be learned to inspire better transportation planning and policymaking. This chapter reviews four main shared mobility services: carsharing, ridesourcing, bikesharing, and scooter sharing to highlight the evolution of public attitudes and perceptions towards the shared mobility services. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

International Conference on Transportation and Development 2022

In 2017, the town of Innisfil, Ontario, launched Innisfil Transit in partnership with Uber, a transportation network company, to provide a subsidized on-demand public mobility service as an alternative to investing in a new fixed-route bus service. The performance of Innisfil Transit is documented in a 2021 Ryerson University report by Sweet, Mitra, and Benaroya, which shows greater cost effectiveness of the mobility provided over the proposed bus alternative. This paper expands on those findings by assessing Innisfil Transit with respect to sustainability, scalability, and resiliency. First, we quantify the energy and emissions of this program relative to traditional transit and driving alone across varying powertrains. We then characterize a conservative first-order estimate of the percentage of US communities that fall within a similar spatial-demographic tier as Innisfil. Replicability also hinges on service cost and performance in comparison to average values for low-density transit in the US. Lastly, most transit agencies experienced a significant drop in demand (as much as 90%) with slowly rebounding ridership since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The resiliency of the Innisfil program to the pressures induced by the pandemic is examined in comparison to other transit operations. The lessons learned across these three dimensions complement prior work to better understand the efficiency and sustainability of on-demand public mobility service for low-density communities like Innisfil. © ASCE. All rights reserved.

Understanding User Perception and Feelings for Autonomous Mobility on Demand in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era

New mobility-on-demand services together with the emerging technology of autonomous vehicles (AV) aim to revolutionize urban transportation systems, by introducing autonomous driving and sophisticated sharing and routing schemes for efficiently serving individual’s needs and requirements. On the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted travel patterns due to the emerging trends of social distancing and teleworking. In this paper, we aim at investigating users’ perception on autonomous vehicles, mobility on demand schemes as well as on the future transportation landscape using data collected through a questionnaire survey in the Metropolitan Area of Athens, Greece conducted after the first COVID-19 pandemic wave. First, a statistical analysis of the responses is performed and, then, a clustering approach is followed to identify user profiles based on daily mobility patterns and attitudes towards autonomous vehicles. Subsequently, the identified profiles are exploited in the development of a Bayesian Network to reveal interrelations between user profiling, attitudes and perceptions for future mobility services. Regarding the acceptance of Autonomous Mobility on Demand (AMoD) services, as well as travelers’ level of happiness concerning future scenarios of urban transportation, results have shown that the majority of travelers in Athens will be more than happy in the case where the entire transportation system is served with AMoD services.

A Simulation-Based Evaluation of a Cargo-Hitching Service for E-Commerce Using Mobility-on-Demand Vehicles

Time-sensitive parcel deliveries—shipments requested for delivery in a day or less—are an increasingly important aspect of urban logistics. It is challenging to deal with these deliveries from a carrier perspective. These require additional planning constraints, preventing the efficient consolidation of deliveries that is possible when demand is well known in advance. Furthermore, such time-sensitive deliveries are requested to a wider spatial scope than retail centers, including homes and offices. Therefore, an increase in such deliveries is considered to exacerbate negative externalities, such as congestion and emissions. One of the solutions is to leverage spare capacity in passenger transport modes. This concept is often denominated as cargo hitching. While there are various system designs, it is crucial that such a solution does not deteriorate the quality of service of passenger trips. This research aims to evaluate the use of mobility-on-demand (MOD) services that perform same-day parcel deliveries. To test the MOD-based solutions, we utilize a high-resolution agent- and activity-based simulation platform of passenger and freight flows. E-commerce demand carrier data collected in Singapore are used to characterize simulated parcel delivery demand. We explore operational scenarios that aim to minimize the adverse effects of fulfilling deliveries with MOD service vehicles on passenger flows. Adverse effects are measured in fulfillment, wait, and travel times. A case study on Singapore indicates that the MOD services have potential to fulfill a considerable amount of parcel deliveries and decrease freight vehicle traffic and total vehicle kilometers travelled without compromising the quality of MOD for passenger travel. Insights into the operational performance of the cargo-hitching service are also provided.

Autonomous wheelchair for patient's transportation on healthcare institutions.

The transport of patients from the inpatient service to the operating room is a recurrent task in a hospital routine. This task is repetitive, non-ergonomic, time consuming, and requires the labor of patient transporters. In this paper is presented a system, named Connected Driverless Wheelchair, that can receive transportation requests directly from the hospital information management system, pick up patients at their beds, navigate autonomously through different floors, avoid obstacles, communicate with elevators, and drop patients off at the designated operating room. As a result, a prototype capable of transporting patients autonomously in hospital environments was obtained. Although it was impossible to test the final developed system at the hospital as planned, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the extensive tests conducted at the robotics laboratory facilities, and our previous experience in integrating mobile robots in hospitals, allowed to conclude that it is perfectly prepared for this integration to be carried out. The achieved results are relevant since this is a system that may be applied to support these types of tasks in the future, making the transport of patients more efficient (both from a cost and time perspective), without unpredictable delays and, in some cases, safer.