Socioeconomic Impact of Emerging Mobility Markets and Implementation Strategies

TL;DR

This paper proposes a socio-economic model for emerging mobility systems like CAVs, using mechanism design to create incentives that promote efficiency, truthful reporting, and sustainability in urban transportation networks.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mobility market framework that aligns travelers' incentives with social efficiency and revenue generation using mechanism design techniques.

Findings

The mobility market incentivizes truthful travel reporting.

It achieves socially efficient transportation with selfish travelers.

The system can generate revenue to cover operational costs.

Abstract

Emerging mobility systems such as connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) provide the most intriguing opportunity for more accessible, safe, and efficient transportation. CAVs are expected to significantly improve safety by eliminating the human factor and ensure transportation efficiency by allowing users to monitor transportation network conditions and make better operating decisions. However, CAVs could alter the users' tendency-to-travel, leading to a higher traffic demand than expected, thus causing rebound effects (e.g., increased vehicle-miles-traveled). In this chapter, we focus on tackling social factors that could drive an emerging mobility system to unsustainable congestion levels. We propose a mobility market that models the economic in-nature interactions of the travelers in a smart city network with roads and public transit infrastructure. Using techniques from mechanism design, we introduce appropriate monetary incentives (e.g., tolls, fares, fees) and show how a mobility system consisting of selfish travelers that seek to travel either with a CAV or use public transit can be socially efficient. Furthermore, the proposed mobility market ensures that travelers always report their true travel preferences and always benefit from participating in the market; lastly, we also show that the market generates enough revenue to potentially cover its operating costs.