2013-08-12
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Uncongested Mobility for All: NJ's Area-wide aTaxi System: Part 2, aTaxi Operational Descriptions and Service Performance Opportunities
My students and I have been conducting a quantitative assessment of the mobility implications of autonomousTaxis (aTaxis), the ultimate in Smart Driving Cars. The task was simple: How well could a truly safe fleet of self-driving cars serve the demand for personal mobility? Rather than just focus on the mobility needs of cities, or suburbs the decision was to assess the full spectrum of today's land uses. New Jersey was selected not only because we live here, but also because it embraces essentially all uses of land from extremely rural farms and preserved spaces, through a wide variety of suburban developments to both old and new high density urban living. The May 14, 2013 issue of Smart Driving Cars described how we synthesized each of the 32+ million trips made by New Jersey's 9 million inhabitants and out of state workers that interact with the land uses on a typical weekday. Today most of these trips are taken by the personal automobile or walking. Only 0.90 million are served by NJ Transit, of which 0.54 are by bus, 0.28 by rail and 0.07 by light rail. School buses served more trips than mass transit (1.4 million, est. by The Public Purpose in 1994).
This issue of SDC reports on how a large fleet of aTaxis, complemented by the existing NJ Transit Rail System, walking and biking, could serve all the 32+ million daily trips. The aTaxis are envisioned to operate throughout New Jersey's existing roadways, tunnels, and bridges. They are complemented by NJ Transit's existing commuter rail facilities. This multi-modal system would serve all long trips that wouldn't otherwise be served by walking or cycling. Read more