Abstract Summary
The combination of Public Transport and Shared Mobility Services has the potential to reduce the door-to-door travel times of passengers and offer a competitive alternative to the use of private vehicles in urban areas. Past studies have shown that there is significant potential for a modal shift towards public transport if the first/last-mile trip parts of passenger trips are performed by well-synchronized shared mobility services. However, public transport and shared mobility service providers do not actively integrate their services because they plan their daily operations in isolation. This results in inefficiencies at several levels. At the strategic level, the designs of networks are not well-integrated as the locations of public transport stops and the locations of shared mobility stations (i.e., docking stations) are not in close proximity. At the tactical planning level, the timetables of public transport services are not well-synchronized with the shared mode services resulting in increased passenger transfer times. This particularly hinders the efficiency of the first/last-mile parts of passenger trips and increases the door-to-door passenger travel times. At the operational level, passenger demand and travel time variations during the day can lead to further inefficiencies that can hinder the synchronization of public transport and shared modes to the detriment of travelers. In addition to the above, the different fare collection processes of public transport and shared mobility operators result in a fragmented payment system that adds one more barrier to travelers. We present a framework for the network design, scheduling, real-time control and ticketing integration of public transport and shared mobility services that will be tested and deployed in 9 cities across Europe with the aim of increasing the use of New and Shared Modes by 25%. The framework includes optimization and simulation-based approaches for network design, frequency settings, timetabling, vehicle routing, shared mode rebalancing, and rescheduling with special emphasis on the reduction of the door-to-door travel times of passengers in urban areas.
