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Exploring Autonomous Transit

Grantor and Client
• Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI)

Recipient
• Prospect Silicon Valley (ProspectSV)

Duration
• 2018–2019
• 1-year project

Project Highlights
• Principal Investigator
• Managed and assumed overall responsibility for the project's success
• Leading research tasks
• Conducting knowledge transfer

We estimated the potential costs and benefits of automated, electric, on-demand shuttles that could provide first- and last-mile connections to transit using a deployment scenario generated for Santa Clara County. Metrics addressed safety, accessibility, equity, energy, air quality, noise, vehicle miles traveled, passenger miles traveled, and vehicle occupancy. We identified sample deployment markets within Santa Clara County using GIS screening, and tested the mode share changes of the automated shuttle deployment scenario using Behavior, Energy, Autonomy, Mobility (BEAM), an open-source travel demand model developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Descriptions of the project process and tools enabled planners across the country to perform similar analyses in their localities. The resulting data provided valuable feedback to generate more specific automated shuttle services and lead to real-world deployments.