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This paper presents the autonomous platoon formations that could be used to form a platoon of buses on dedicated roadways. A non-linear dynamic model and a path-following and car-following controller are presented and their performance evaluated. Using the dynamic model a platoon of three vehicles is simulated along a multi-segment reference path,...
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... modeling of the vehicle-road system allows for more accurate physical simulation and is performed by estimating the various physical properties of the vehicle, road and tires [5]. A simplified two dimensional single-track nonlinear model for the vehicle body, similar to the one presented in [6], is presented in Figure 1 and the expression below. ...
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... a simpler linear reference path, the gap mainte- nance controller can be observed independently of the path- following and the path-speed controllers. Figure 10 shows the platoon vehicles following each other with zero steady state error at the two reference gaps 0.5 seconds and 2.5 seconds. The transition period between T=30 and T=35 shows the vehicles following at the same gradient of the reference gap, albeit slightly lagged in response. ...
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Citations
... Platooning is more actively studied for heavy-duty vehicles for the purpose of fuel saving, with coordination schemes ranging from scheduling to speed profiles adjustment [17], [18], [19]. Bus platoon coordination strategies have been developed by [20] and [21]. The efficiency of semi-autonomous bus services compared to conventional and fully autonomous buses in trunk-and-branch networks is evaluated in [15]. ...
The paper investigates the efficiency of serving high demand transit corridors with connected semi-autonomous bus platoons in both bus and BRT services. Platooning facilitates higher capacity than conventional buses by forming virtual long buses out of multiple smaller vehicles, which may be particularly relevant in scenarios with large demand variations between peak and off-peak hours. The problem is formulated as a constrained optimization problem to minimize total system cost, which includes waiting cost, access cost, riding cost, operating cost and capital cost. For a single period with fixed demand, both analytical solutions and numerical examples are provided. Sensitivity analysis is carried out with regard to demand levels and capacity upper bound. The problem is generalized to a two-period problem considering peak and off-peak demand. Numerical results are provided with sensitivity analysis regarding demand level and ratio of peak/off-peak demand. Furthermore, the impact of a lower bound on service headway is investigated. The result shows that semi-autonomous vehicle platooning is competitive in medium and high-demand scenarios, with the potential of reduced user costs and operating costs at the expense of additional rolling stock costs. Minimum headway constraint, restricted vehicle size, and higher demand ratio all make semi-autonomous platooning more advantageous.
... In 2017, a survey among 200 passengers of autonomous mini-buses in real operation in the city of Trikala showed that they are well accepted, and there are no major concerns as regards safety and security [9]. Also, the platooning technology endows the buses to handle the scenarios where complex interactions occur [10]. ...
With the continuous development of science andtechnology, self-driving vehicles will surely change the natureof transportation and realize the automotive industry’s trans-formation in the future. Compared with self-driving cars, self-driving buses are more efficient in carrying passengers andmore environmentally friendly in terms of energy consumption.Therefore, it is speculated that in the future, self-driving buseswill become more and more important. As a simulator forautonomous driving research, the CARLA simulator can helppeople accumulate experience in autonomous driving technologyfaster and safer. However, a shortcoming is that there is nomodern bus model in the CARLA simulator. Consequently,people cannot simulate autonomous driving on buses or thescenarios interacting with buses. Therefore, we built a bus modelin 3ds Max software and imported it into the CARLA to fillthis gap. Our model, namely KIT bus, is proven to work in theCARLA by testing it with the autopilot simulation. The videodemo is shown on our Youtube.
(PDF) KIT Bus: A Shuttle Model for CARLA Simulator. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357442959_KIT_Bus_A_Shuttle_Model_for_CARLA_Simulator [accessed May 21 2022].
... In 2017, a survey among 200 passengers of autonomous mini-buses in real operation in the city of Trikala showed that they are well accepted, and there are no major concerns as regards safety and security [9]. Also, the platooning technology endows the buses to handle the scenarios where complex interactions occur [10]. ...
With the continuous development of science and technology, self-driving vehicles will surely change the nature of transportation and realize the automotive industry's transformation in the future. Compared with self-driving cars, self-driving buses are more efficient in carrying passengers and more environmentally friendly in terms of energy consumption. Therefore, it is speculated that in the future, self-driving buses will become more and more important. As a simulator for autonomous driving research, the CARLA simulator can help people accumulate experience in autonomous driving technology faster and safer. However, a shortcoming is that there is no modern bus model in the CARLA simulator. Consequently, people cannot simulate autonomous driving on buses or the scenarios interacting with buses. Therefore, we built a bus model in 3ds Max software and imported it into the CARLA to fill this gap. Our model, namely KIT bus, is proven to work in the CARLA by testing it with the autopilot simulation. The video demo is shown on our Youtube.
... The fleet of autonomous buses has increased in several metropolitan areas (e.g., Frankfurt, Stockholm) and, as confidence grows, an increasing number of buses operate without a driver. This provides new options for control of the vehicle operations via fine-grain adjustments to the vehicle trajectories (e.g., via speed control, holding control, or (re)scheduling) [3]. ...
... Unlike human-driven buses, autonomous buses exhibit an extremely cautious driving behavior. For instance, they are very sensitive to the movement of people at pedestrian crossings and can be severely delayed if their sensors detect nearby obstacles [3]. This yields a considerable variation to their inter-station travel times (e.g., some trips might be delayed for several minutes when traversing a link due to the conservative driving of autonomous buses in mixed traffic environments). ...
... As shown in Table 1, twelve studies were reviewed, which included four journal articles, six conference proceedings, one report, and one white paper. Six publications were from Europe [9,10,[12][13][14][15], and the other half were conducted in the United States [16][17][18][19][20], and one study was conducted in Australia [21]. Numerous types of methods were used in these studies, with the most common being simulation modelling (four studies), design proposals (two papers) and concept papers (two papers). ...
... First, two concept papers proposed a definition for autonomous buses including technology and transportation system characteristics and compared this to fully automated train systems [10,14]. Other papers focused on specific technologies that can be used for partial (e.g., Level 2 and Level 3) and eventually for full automation, such as collision avoidance technology [18,19], autonomous control systems [12,15], cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC), and platooning [13,16,19]. Similarly, new concepts were proposed pertaining to technology and vehicle design, such as slim semiautonomous bus rapid transit (SSaBRTransit) [17]. ...
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) represent a new, growing segment of transportation research. While there have been prior studies and deployments of AVs worldwide, full autonomy in bus transit has gained interest among researchers and practitioners within the last decade, which presents an opportunity to synthesize early trends. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to provide a review of the latest research on fully autonomous buses to summarize findings and identify gaps needing future research. Forty studies were reviewed in detail, and five main themes were identified, which are (1) technology deployment; (2) user acceptance; (3) safety; (4) social and economic aspects; and (5) regulations, policies, and legal issues. The results reveal that most prior studies have focused on technology development, and the area of regulation and policy would benefit from additional study. Noteworthy differences between research in Europe and the United States were also identified. In Europe, large funded projects involving real-world deployments have focused on user acceptance, security and safety, costs, and related legal issues, whereas in the United States, research has primarily concentrated on simulation modelling with limited real-world deployments. The results of this review are important for policy-makers and researchers as AV technology continues to evolve and become more widely available.
... Human factors are always a concern and consideration in the era of AVs [18]. Recent research has focused more on technological development such as platooning control [19], vehicle concept [20], cost efficiency [21], timetabling and scheduling [22], the experimental platform for vehicle control [23], mapping and path planning [24]. Apart from the AV, truck platooning has also attracted much research interest in [7,8,25], but there are very few studies on bus platooning. ...
The development of advanced technologies has led to the emergence of autonomous vehicles. Herein, autonomous public transport (APT) systems equipped with prioritization measures are being designed to operate at ever faster speeds compared to conventional buses. Innovative APT systems are configured to accommodate prevailing passenger demand for peak as well as non-peak periods, by electronic coupling and decoupling of platooned units along travel corridors, such as the dynamic autonomous road transit (DART) system being researched in Singapore. However, there is always the trade-off between high vehicle speed versus passenger ride comfort, especially lateral ride comfort. This study analyses a new APT system within the urban context and evaluates its performance using microscopic traffic simulation. The platooning protocol of autonomous vehicles was first developed for simulating the coupling/decoupling process. Platooning performance was then simulated on VISSIM platform for various scenarios to compare the performance of DART platooning under several ride comfort levels: three bus comfort and two railway criteria. The study revealed that it is feasible to operate the DART system following the bus standing comfort criterion (ay = 1.5 m/s2) without any significant impact on system travel time. For the DART system operating to maintain a ride comfort of the high-speed train (HST) and light rail transit (LRT), the delay can constitute up to 10% and 5% of travel time, respectively. This investigation is crucial for the system delay management towards precisely designed service frequency and improved passenger ride comfort.
... Better service for passengers is also provided nowadays given the emergence to autonomous public transport (APT) like autonomous bus (AB) worldwide. However, recent research has focused more on the technology development such as platooning control (Lam and Katupitiya, 2013), vehicle concept (Ginn et al., 2017), cost efficiency (Zhang et al., 2019), timetabling and scheduling (Cao and Ceder, 2019), experimental platform for vehicle control (Montes et al., 2017), mapping and path planning (Yu et al., 2018). Empirical evidence from passenger security on AB can be found in (Salonen, 2018), or public attitudes towards AB in (Portouli et al., 2017). ...
Ride comfort is an important serviceability attribute for bus passengers, of which bus operating under the influence of road layout in urban roads is a prominent contributory factor. Passenger posture is another influencing factor that has not yet been investigated comprehensively. In this case study, ride comfort from road-induced lateral acceleration and lateral jerk was assessed by correlating subjective evaluation with bus operation performance parameters as well as road layout in Singapore. In the first bus run, a sample of 26 participants classified in three groups: sitting, leaning and standing postures, rode on the same bus along a 45-minute route. Ride comfort was worst-off for standing passengers and least uncomfortable for sitting passengers. A strong statistical correlation was found between participants’ subjective ratings with lateral acceleration and duration of turning movement. A second bus run was followed with a sample of 11 participants to collect additional passengers’ ratings. Lateral ride discomfort thresholds were thus established for bus negotiating roundabouts, intersections and along links. The three levels of ride discomfort are Uncomfortable, Very Uncomfortable and Extremely Uncomfortable with average lateral accelerations of ay = 1.5, 1.75 and 2.0m/s2, respectively. The lateral ride discomfort thresholds would be useful for several value-add applications which include better vehicle design including its interiors, and better vehicle handling about the road layout. With the advent of autonomous public transport (APT), the ride discomfort thresholds must also be considered as valuable input for APT vehicle operation.
... The proportional-derivative (PD) controller was driving the error angle between the vehicle heading and predicted future point. [27]. A nonlinear adaptive controller for controlling following vehicle was designed [28]; the controller used inputs from the leader as what could be sensed by the follower i.e. there was no inter-vehicle communication. ...
Philosophers and researchers across the academy have addressed numerous ethical aspects of automated vehicles. Despite these advancements, they have said little about automated buses. Unlike personal vehicles, buses provide some users with more than just mobility. They provide care and community, aspects of transportation that may be under-appreciated. Exploring these dimensions is the purpose of this paper. While there are several practical concerns for this position, such arguments are secondary. We should not (fully) automate all buses because some vulnerable populations require care from bus drivers to mitigate some dangers that stem from some cities' designs. In turn, the author employs care ethics to advocate for the view that some human drivers should be retained because they serve in care positions that should not be replaced with fully automated systems.
