Rideshare Empty VMT Reduction
Parking Between Ridehailing Trips Could Decrease Empty Vehicle-Miles Traveled by 25% Compared to Driver Cruising
One of the most immediate concerns in ridehilaing operations is to address dead-head mileage to increase average occupancy and mitigate congestion. One option is to provide infrastructure and opportunity to park between trips to limit cruising miles – having drivers park (before or after optimally repositioning) instead of cruising.
The study, performed for the Austin metropolitan area, shows that driver cruising lowers traveler wait time at the expense of increased VMT and in-service time. Moreover, driving to parking between trips would decrease empty VMT by 25% in urban dense areas with 18% increase in traveler wait time.
To perform the analysis, a series of simulations were conducted that included parking behaviors for both ridehailing and personal vehicles. For understanding the benefits of enforced parking for ridehailing vehicles, three scenarios were created: (1) all vehicles cruise to find parking at the end of their trip, (2) personal vehicles cruise to park but ridehailing vehicles identify parking options that minimize a heuristic cost, and (3) ridehailing vehicles just idle in place while personal vehicles cruise to find parking.
Based on the potential benefits of aggregated parking for ridehail drivers, cities could benefit from tracking ride-hail routes and developing policies to provide parking or manage curb-space to reduce cruising. Additional data should be collected to further understand the parking behaviour of both passenger cars and commercial vehicles.
The study was funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) Energy Efficient Mobility Systems (EEMS).
Fakhrmoosavi, F., Gurumurthy, K.M., Kockelman, K.M., Hunter, C.B., and Dean, M.D. 2024. Parking Strategies and Outcomes for Shared Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Operations. Forthcoming in Journal of Transportation Engineering Part A: Systems.