Robo-Taxi service fleet sizing: assessing the impact of user trust and willingness-to-use

The first commercial fleets of Robo-Taxis will be on the road soon. Today important efforts are made to anticipate future Robo-Taxi services. Fleet size is one of the key parameters considered in the planning phase of service design and configuration. Based on multi-agent approaches, the fleet size can be explored using dynamic demand response simulations. Time and cost are the most common variables considered in such simulation approaches. However, personal taste variation can affect the demand and consequently the required fleet size. In this paper, we explore the impact of user trust and willingness-to-use on the Robo-Taxi fleet size. This research is based upon simulating the transportation system of the Rouen-Normandie metropolitan area in France using MATSim, a multi-agent activity-based simulator. A local survey is made in order to explore the variation of user trust and their willingness-to-use future Robo-Taxis according to the sociodemographic attributes. Integrating survey data in the model shows the significant importance of traveler trust and willingness-to-use varying the Robo-Taxi use and the required fleet size.

     

A Fuzzy Set Approach for a Location-Inventory Model

Abstract

In the supply chain, production and logistics facilities are positioned between the customer and supply markets. As a consequence, any changes in these markets should cause the enterprise to re-evaluate its location and the capacity of its activities at that particular location in the logistics network, which also means re-evaluating the parameters of input-output matrices for the entire supply chain. Different analytical approaches have been developed to describe the influence of production on the hierarchical spatial pattern. Our article presents a fuzzy set approach to the model of spatial hierarchy as a result of spatial interactions. We attempt to present the difference between net present value estimated by a fuzzy approach on the one hand and report on an analytical approach to the problem on the other.