As the home of several large German car brands, Stuttgart and its surrounding metropolitan regions is historically attached to the personal car. Due to increased traffic and the difficult topography of Stuttgart in a valley, pollution has increasingly become a problem. Even though many inhabitants would like to use the extensive public transport system, certain areas might not have a convenient connection to the network. Therefore, the modelling of use cases in the capital of the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg focus on the impacts of CAVs on travel time and choice of travel mode, as well as the impact of driverless car- and ridesharing services.
Both topics are very much interlinked, as an increase in CAVs in car-sharing could have significant impacts on the use of public transport and car ownership in general. If the offered systems are financially sustainable, affordable and reliable, the overall number of owned cars might reduce. On the other hand, if the convenience of shared CAVs is high and the service is affordable, the number of trips done by public transport might decrease.
Results of the macro-modelling analysis show that if ridesharing with CAVs would be integrated into public transport services, the share of public transport could increase by around 25%. Whether or not citizens would give up their personal car depends on the willingness of people to give up their private vehicle and to share vehicle have a high impact on vehicle traffic.
According to the models, if half of the persons with access to a car give up car ownership, vehicle distance travelled will go down by approximately one quarter. Furthermore, as ridesharing eliminates parking costs, demand for ridesharing services will increase more in urban areas with paid parking. An additional reduction of private cars can be achieved, if ridesharing integrated into public transport and carsharing is available. In this case, up to 25% of all vehicles can be omitted. This number can be further reduced with an increasing willingness to share.
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