How fleet management systems pave the way for on-demand services and individual mobility within public transportation

Abstract

The shift from private to shared mobility that can be observed in urban areas puts an end to private car ownership as shared autonomous solutions mature. Public Transport Providers increasingly pilot autonomous and on-demand shuttle services to gain insights and meet the demand for individual mobility. Therefore, optimally managing these fleets becomes a crucial activity to improve operational efficiency and quality of service while minimizing overall costs of the service: Fleet Management systems need to manage the on-demand distribution of vehicles, taking into account the spatial and temporal overlaps of customer requests. This paper shows how interdisciplinary partners develop a multimodal fleet management system to enable an automated on-demand shuttle service in an extensive area and amplifies the challenges during the process.