Automated Transportation Study Estimated Operating Costs for Fully Automated Buses and Taxis Using Data from 62 Cities in Japan.
Nationwide, Japan
Introducing autonomous buses and taxis: Quantifying the potential benefits in Japanese transportation systems
Summary Information
Fully automated buses and taxis hold the potential to lower operational costs, particularly for regional bus operations, and to improve public transit accessibility by decreasing trip expenses. This study quantified the costs of travel in Japan from an automated vehicles’ perspective using data for 62 cities from 2015 National Person Trip Survey in Japan and presented the potential benefits. Operating costs were computed for fully automated buses and taxis in Japanese metropolitan areas. The costs of travel, including travel time and travel fares, were then computed with and without vehicle automation for different trip types in high- and low-density metropolitan areas. It should be noted that this study used ride sharing to mimic fully automated vehicle conditions, and non-ride sharing to represent non-automated vehicle conditions.
METHODOLOGY
In this study, taxi operating costs were computed following the methodology from another research study from 2018, where the operating costs of taxis both with and without ride sharing were estimated simultaneously by setting different operating patterns for a chosen passenger car. The regular taxi operating costs included vehicle acquisition, annual ownership, maintenance costs, operating conditions, driver’s salary, vehicle lifetime, and interest rates. Fully automated taxi operating costs assumed higher vehicle acquisition costs and reduced labor costs with automation, compared to regular taxis. Similarly, private car usage costs were also computed with and without automation. Regarding buses, fully automated bus operating costs were computed based on available data on regular bus operating costs and the assumption of reduced labor costs with vehicle automation. Bus fares were estimated assuming a prevailing market structure with automation.
FINDINGS
- The results highlighted that while public transit trips currently have a smaller share of time costs in overall trip expenses, these costs could decrease with vehicle automation. For instance, costs for trips ranging from 10–20 km (6-12 miles) could decrease by 44–61 percent for taxi trips and 13–37 percent for rail/bus trips with taxi access. This is followed by a decrease of 6–11 percent for bus trips and 1–11 percent for rail trips with bus access.
- Additionally, the results suggest that the costs of private car trips could decrease by 11–16 percent with vehicle automation.
