KTH Bachelor Thesis Report
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DEGREE PROJECT IN TECHNOLOGY, FIRST CYCLE, 15 CREDITS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2019 Analysis of Autonomous Buses impact on transportation between Stockholm’s universities KTH Bachelor Thesis Report Marc Urtasun López KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CIVIL ENGINEERING Author Marc Urtasun López, [email protected] Transport Science KTH Royal Institute of Technology Place for Project Stockholm, Sweden KTH main campus Examiner Albania Nissan Stockholm, Sweden KTH Royal Institute of Technology Supervisors Jonas Hatzenbühler, Erik Jenelius Stockholm, Sweden KTH Royal Institute of Technology Abstract The city of Stockholm is developing fast and its population is strongly growing, new solutions for urban mobility must be found. Implementations in the public transport network are needed and the use of automated buses is a present topic for efficient and sustainable transportation. The Vetenskapsstaden area has three of the main university campus coexisting, this leads to a generation of campus- to-campus trips which creates an impact in the Stockholm’s public transport. The unique environment and singular users arise the aim to execute a potential solution to release ridership from the public transport network. This thesis analyzes and evaluates whether a new automated bus line is needed or not in the studied area. A cost model will study the proposed solutions through the rated decision variables: frequency and capacity, commercial speed and different rates of demand. The relative efficiency of the proposed implementations is studied compared with the costs of the current public transport modes used in the area. Numerical analysis and results are given for two different scenarios: implementing one bus line connecting the three campuses or three lines between campuses. The former scenario shows to be more sensitive to the studied variables and presents higher costs whereas the second-option costs have a robust response and lower overall price evaluation. For both infrastructure models, the rate of demand is crucial to evaluate the advantages of a potential solution. The established method and criteria contributes to a better understanding of the impact of autonomous buses to low-demand analytic models. Keywords Public Transport Network, General Costs Evaluation, Autonomous Bus, Low demand, Bachelor’s Degree Project. ii Abstract Stockholms stad utvecklas snabbt och befolkningen växer kraftigt, nya lösningar för rörlighet i städerna måste hittas. Implementeringar i kollektivtrafiken är nödvändiga och användningen av automatiserade bussar är ett aktuellt ämne för effektiv och hållbar transport. I Vetenskapsstaden-området samexisterar tre av universitetscampusen, vilket leder till att man kan genomföra en egen lösning för att avlasta Stockholms kollektivtrafik från campus till campus resor. Denna avhandling analyserar och utvärderar om en ny automatig serad busslinje behövs eller ej i det studerade området. En kostnadsmodell kommer att studera beslutsvariablernas känslighet: frekvens och kapacitet, kommersiell hastighet och olika efterfråganivåer. De föreslagna implementeringarnas relativa effektivitet studeras under kostnaden för de nuvarande kollektivtrafiklägena som används i området. Numerisk analys och resultat ges för två olika scenarier: en busslinje implementerad eller tre olika busslinjer. Det tidigare scenariot visar att det är mer känsligt för de studerade variablerna och ger högre kostnader medan de andra alternativskostnaderna har ett robust svar och en lägre övergripande prisutvärdering. För båda infrastrukturmodellerna är efterfrågan på avgörande betydelse för att utvärdera fördelarna med en potentiell lösning. Den etablerade metoden och kriterierna bidrar till en bättre förståelse av effekten av autonoma bussar till låga efterfrågan på analytiska modeller. Nyckelord Kollektivtrafik, Kostnadsbedömning, Autonoma Bussar, Låg Efterfrågan, Kandidat examensarbete. iii Acknowledgements This thesis is the result of a five-moth research project at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan. With this work, I am finalizing my Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and my exchange year in Stockholm. My journey through the Civil engineering Bachelor Degree has been both challenging and exciting but my final thesis project was passionate and intense. But I would like to add that the help of certain persons - both at professional and personal level - was warmly and very supportive. Therefore, I would like to thank all people that somehow has made an impact on me and my degree project. First and foremost, I definitely need to thank my daily supervisor, Jonas Hatzenbühler, he has been following up my steps on this research project and advising, guiding and supporting me on this journey. He has totally involved himself in this thesis, giving his well-founded and critic opinion during the whole process of development. Also, his adaptability, comprehension and open attitude towards any adverse situation created a perfect atmosphere of work. Next, I would like to thank Knut Staffan Algers for his case study idea, it was an inspiration to start this research project. He provided part of the background of this thesis, motivated me with an exciting topic and supplied this project with the needed demand survey. The given data was a save of time for me and an interesting source of information. Last but not least, Staffan has provided me with a totally sense of freedom to perform and funding help through a scholarship from Transportekonomiska Forskningsstiftelsen. Furthermore, I want to thank Erik Jenelius for his supervision and valuable comments on the several meetings that have been carried out. His point of view and opinion through public transport networks expertise has been really enhancing. Of course, I also want to thank to Albania Nissan (Bibbi) for her initial support. She helped me to introduce myself to the Transport Science department and gave me great advice on a lot of aspects when most needed. iv Finally, I would like to thank my family, friends and all the people that somehow has been involved in my life these months. As an exchange student, there are a lot of new experiences and a few tough moments that are challenging, but appreciated advice and support was given to me when I asked for it. To my parents and my brother, that have experienced this thesis through my thoughts on every phone call and have supported me on every step I have made. Marc Urtasun López, June 2019 v List of Figures 1.1 First autonomous bus in Scandinavia. ................. 2 1.2 Scania AB self-driven bus will be operating in Barkaby district soon. 3 1.3 Vetenskapsstaden strategic area .................... 4 2.1 Transit planning process steps defined by Ceder et al. 1986[4] . 6 3.1 Trips per OD over the studied time in percent [%] . 13 3.2 Speed profile distribution over time for a specific bus line . 15 4.1 Distribution of daily trips over time from campus to campus . 26 4.2 Description of the connection between the university campus. 28 4.3 Sketch of the first scenario of study. 29 4.4 Sketch of the second scenario of study. 30 5.1 Current location of KI, KTH, SU campus stop. 32 5.2 New location of KI, KTH, SU campus stop. 33 5.3 Load profile for the One-line scenario. 34 5.4 Load profile for the Three-line scenario. 35 5.5 Heat-map of general costs through vehicle capacity and speed for the 1 line scenario. ............................ 38 5.6 Heat-map of general costs through vehicle capacity and speed for the 3 line scenario. ............................ 39 5.7 General costs of the three studied scenarios studied over and increase of demand. ........................... 40 5.8 Evaluation of User and Operator cost when decision variables are increased. ................................. 42 5.9 Impact of vehicle size on the two analyzed scenarios costs. 43 5.10 User and Operator cost of the proposed solutions over vehicle size with the new demand on Demandf actor=2.5. 44 vi List of Tables 4.1 Transport modes and travel times between campuses . 24 4.2 Campus accessing distances ....................... 25 4.3 OD matrix of trips generation. ..................... 27 5.1 Data related to the current location of the stops and the walking distances to campus. ........................... 32 5.2 Data related to the new location of the stops and the walking distances to campus. ........................... 33 5.3 Riding distances between campus ................... 33 vii Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background ................................ 1 1.2 Scope ................................... 3 1.3 Motivation, research question and objectives ............. 4 2 Literature review 6 2.1 Public transit planning process ..................... 6 2.2 Headway and Vehicle capacity determination ............. 8 2.3 User and Operational objectives .................... 10 3 Methodology 13 3.1 Demand distribution per OD ...................... 13 3.2 Speed Determination .......................... 14 3.3 Frequency and Vehicle capacity determination . 16 3.4 Bus stop determination ......................... 19 3.5 Computation of General Costs ..................... 20 4 Case Study 24 4.1 Location and current public transport . 24 4.2 Demand target and definition ...................... 25 4.3 Description of scenarios ......................... 27 4.4 Evaluation of the Case Study ...................... 30 5 Numerical Analysis and Results 32 5.1 Location of bus stops ........................... 32 5.2 Load profiles ............................... 33 5.3 General Costs ..............................