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DOE OSTI2020

Powertrain distribution based on total cost of ownership for privately owned vehicles and TNC in the Chicago metropolitan area

From a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) standpoint, the lowest-cost powertrain option depends on driving conditions and number of miles driven over the lifetime of the vehicle. Studies looking at the value proposition of powertrain options traditionally assess the energy consumption based on standardized drive cycles. TCO is then calculated using average yearly Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT). This approach which looks at TCO at the aggregate level, does not take into consideration the variations in driving patterns and the spread of VMT that exist in the vehicle population. In this study, we first determine the driving pattern of each vehicle in the Chicago metropolitan area. We then consider different powertrain options for each vehicle, calculate its associated TCO and provide a powertrain distribution based on lowest TCO. Vehicles under consideration are Privately Owned Vehicles (POV) and vehicles used by Transportation Network Companies (TNC).

Freyermuth, Vincent↗

DOE OSTI2023

Factors Influencing Adoption of Pooled Rideshare An Explorative Study on User-Centered Design and Services

Gangadharaiah, Rakesh↗

DOE OSTI2020

The Automated Mobility District Implementation Catalog: Insights from Ten Early-Stage Deployments

Major disruptive technologies are set to redefine the way in which people view travel, particularly in dense urban areas. Already, ride-hailing services have redefined mobility expectations of a new generation of urban dwellers in some places around the country. Over the next few decades, the proliferation of autonomous vehicles, which are generally referred to in the industry as “automated vehicles (AVs),” will be enhanced by the next generation of shared mobility. This combination of AV operations with on-demand service will provide convenience of mobility similar to that being exhibited in today’s transportation networking companies (TNCs). Shared, automated, public mobility resulting from the cross-hybridization of AVs with on-demand mobility service will bring economic and system efficiencies. Economic efficiencies may be realized by less vehicle ownership and more vehicle “usership.” Many companies are already exploring avenues for shared automated mobility through fleet operations as the wave of the future.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2021

Transportation Hub Infrastructure Expansion: Decision Support Under Uncertainty

The Athena project (www.athena-mobility.org) has worked to investigate the relationship between the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport (DFW) and the greater Dallas area in order to better understand and therefore better inform future decision-making regarding the critical infrastructure that influence mobility between the airport and the city. Through this work, infrastructure related to curbside pickup and drop-off, parking, public transit, and the road network congestion were identified as critical to the operation of the DFW transportation hub. The infrastructure analysis and expansion aspect of the Athena project is focused on the restructuring of the CTA curb as a hierarchical curb and the building or repurposing of parking infrastructure as the interplay between these two areas. Many sources of uncertainty exist that may impact future airport and transportation hub operations, such as passenger volume growth, population demographic changes over time, electric vehicle (EV) adoption rates, and autonomous vehicle (AV) adoption rates. Due to these sources of uncertainty, we have selected for our research a modeling framework that can capture various types of uncertainty and hedge against those uncertainties in the optimization process. We analyze road network and curb congestion, the rise of transportation networking companies, trends in parking usage, existing policies around this infrastructure, airport revenue streams, and other contributing factors to enable infrastructure decision making with less uncertainty. To accomplish this wholistic analysis, we have developed a novel multi-stage, multi-period stochastic optimization model which considers the airport's decisions from 2025-2045 under different possible future macro trajectories and day-to-day variations in operational conditions captured as "annual representation of operations" scenarios with respective probabilities. This model has also been designed to leverage the outputs of various efforts under the Athena project to create a combined decision framework for infrastructure decisions. These various efforts include the route optimization model, the ASPIRES simulation, the mode choice model, and the SUMO traffic simulation. Our computational experiments of this system at scale have resulted in a working version of our infrastructure model which enables the explicit representation and consideration of various sources of uncertainty in the decision process to enable robust, flexible decision-making. This model has been effectively run on NREL's HPC system, Eagle, with large numbers of stochastic scenarios and shows promise as a scalable tool for robust consideration of uncertainties in airport planning. We have tested our model using 30,240 operational circumstances in total, resulting in a problem with more 200 million variables. This model was solved in several different configurations, and a workflow to simulate the performance of the infrastructure model results was developed and deployed. In general, our results indicate that a combination of remote parking, remote curb infrastructure, and dynamic pricing can generate revenue, reduce emissions, accommodate emerging technologies such as AVs and EVs, and manage airport passenger growth over time. We note the success of the proposed strategy depends on the data collection and forecasting abilities of DFW. We have also seen that the AV adoption by TNCs might necessitate larger amounts of remote curb. The results of this work inform strategies for airport infrastructure decision making, as well as demonstrate the value of an adaptable model, but also indicate that there are avenues remaining where further research would be of value.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2023

A User-Centered Design Exploration of Factors That Influence the Rideshare Experience

The rise of real-time information communication through smartphones and wireless networks enabled the growth of ridesharing services. While personal rideshare services (individuals riding alone or with acquaintances) initially dominated the market, the popularity of pooled ridesharing (individuals sharing rides with people they do not know) has grown globally. However, pooled ridesharing remains less common in the U.S., where personal vehicle usage is still the norm. Vehicle design and rideshare services may need to be tailored to user preferences to increase pooled rideshare adoption. Based on a large, national U.S. survey (N = 5385), the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested that four key factors influence riders’ willingness to consider pooled ridesharing: comfort/ease of use, convenience, vehicle technology/accessibility, and passenger safety. A binomial logistic regression was conducted to determine how the four factors influence one’s willingness to consider pooled ridesharing. The two factors that positively influence riders’ willingness to consider pooled ridesharing are vehicle technology/accessibility (B = 1.10) and convenience (B = 0.94), while lack of passenger safety (B = –0.63) and comfort/ease of use (B = –0.17) are pooled ridesharing deterrents. Understanding user-centered design and service factors are critical to increase the use of pooled ridesharing services in the future.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2026

Meeting the Challenges of Modern Transit through the Integration of Traditional Transit, On-Demand Micro-Transit Services and Vehicle Automation - A Case Study in Chandler, Arizona

Current technology trends of vehicle automation, electrification and on-demand transit are providing new tools to develop effective public mobility services, yet need to be balanced with traditional modes to serve the spectrum of demand effectively and efficiently. Automated vehicle transportation network company (TNC) services, better known as 'Robotaxis' are beginning to proliferate and scale across the US, with Waymo as the lead commercial entity. Chandler, AZ was the first fully automated deployment of Waymo technology. Chandler was also one of the first municipalities in Arizona to roll out micro-transit service to its citizens in 2022. At present the Chandler Flex micro-transit program is beginning to partner with Waymo to augment micro-transit services during peak demands, another first in the nation. However, the mix of services in Chandler relies not only on new technology, but also on traditional modes including fixed route transit and para-transit services. These are blended and balanced such that both old and new modes are applied within the context in which each excel. This presentation will provide background on the Chandler, AZ public mobility services, and the performance metrics that govern their use and selection within the spectrum of development and population density as well as socio-demographics within Chandler. Additionally, the behavioral response of the use of unmanned, automated vehicles employed to augment micro-transit is novel, the first in the nation - and initial feedback from public transit constituents in Chandler will be shared.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2022

High-Fidelity Modeling of Curbside Driving Behavior in SUMO: Preprint

Recent advances in mobility technologies have considerably increased the need for curbside use and congestion at curb-lanes. At airports and in dense urban centers, the growing adoption of Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft, has led to an increase in curbside traffic due to the reduction in the use public transit and other shared modes. In dense city areas, the curbside demand and congestion were further augmented by the growing use of e-commerce, which requires home-delivery of goods. To model vehicles' curbside interactions realistically, there is a need for high-fidelity simulation models that can represent the complex interplay of vehicles as they complete pick-up or drop-off trips. Vehicles' curbside behaviors are usually not modeled with high-fidelity in microscopic simulators such Simulation of Urban of Mobility (SUMO). This paper presents such a high-resolution model for vehicle curbside behavior in SUMO, using SUMO's Traci interface. Simulations results demonstrate that the improved curbside behavior captures vehicles' curbside maneuvering more accurately than the default SUMO curbside model, and increases the curbside utilization and capacity.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Community Public Mobility Using On-Demand, Low-Speed Electric Vehicles: A Case Study in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri

Legacy fixed route transit systems designed to serve commuters struggle to provide efficient and effective service for short neighborhood trips and for population groups unable to access and egress transit stops using active modes (e.g., elderly, disabled). Neighborhood on-demand transit (ODT) services using low-speed electric vehicles (LSEV) are an innovative technological solution that can help fill this gap in service (e.g., short, high-frequency trips) for diverse populations and trip types. This study evaluated user characteristics and travel behavior for a neighborhood ODT service (using LSEVs) in downtown St. Louis, Missouri using responses from a community survey (n=244), ridership data, and vehicle trajectory information. A comparative analysis between neighborhood ODT, fixed route transit, and transportation network companies (TNC) was also conducted from the perspectives of total travel time, cost, and greenhouse gas emissions. Ultimately, the goal of the analysis was to motivate and inform holistic public mobility systems where different services are optimized to meet specific community needs. Findings indicate that the neighborhood ODT was effective at reaching diverse populations (elderly (20%), lower income (27%), and households with limited access to private vehicles (34%)). ODT reduced total travel time by 32% compared to fixed route transit, produced 2.4 - 4.3 times less greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile (compared to transit and TNCs), and was more affordable (free to users) than alternative options ($1 for transit, $10-12 for TNCs). Overall satisfaction rates were high, with 80% of respondents rating the service a 4 or 5 out of 5.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Advance Local Mobility Through Energy Efficient Mobility Systems Technologies

Everyone deserves reliable, affordable, and safe transportation to connect people to jobs, healthcare, education, and recreation. Our transportation systems are interconnected, multimodal networks working together to move people and goods. These systems are dynamic and are being reshaped by factors such as population trends, new technologies, shifting labor models, economic forces, and changing climate. Energy efficient mobility systems (EEMS) technologies can help transportation planners ensure changes in our transportation systems are equitable and sustainable by improving energy efficiency, travel time, and affordability, as well as overall access to mobility. Transportation planners and decision makers can use the following EEMS tools and strategies to advance local mobility.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Sustainable Public Transport: Providing Responsive, On-Demand Service with Clean Energy

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) uses the Mobility Energy Productivity (MEP) as a metric and a lens to guide applied research into high performance public mobility. In the current initiative to abate global warming, the US needs not only zero-emission vehicles in the transit fleet (such as buses and shuttles) but also time- and cost-effective services to connect people with goods, services and employment toward a high-quality of life. Our current transportation system is overly dependent on personally-owned automobiles for high quality mobility, with public modes being less viable in many areas. Simply electrifying the drivetrains of existing public transit modes will fail to improve the quality of mobility for those that do not have access to private automobiles. The slow rebound by transit from the pandemic reveals the need to reinvent public transit service. Using the MEP lens, NREL researchers have tracked various novel developments in the public mobility space, with the confluence of shared, on-demand transit (ODT) services using light duty vehicles emerging as a key enabler of high-efficiency public mobility. Deployments such as those in Arlington, TX, Dallas, TX, Fort Erie, ON, and Innisfil, ON showcase the use of fleets of light-duty vehicles as the basis for community circulation and first/last mile to intra-regional transit. ODT services have demonstrated improvements in being more time efficient for riders, more energy efficient in operation (even before the introduction of fully electric vehicles), as well as being cost effective. It appears that aspects of the long-awaited promise of Personal Rapid Transit from the 1970s are beginning to be realized through ODT deployments, leveraging transportation network company (TNC) logistics, popularized by Uber and Lyft, but applied to public mobility. Currently, manually driven ODT operations are already cost competitive with traditional transit systems on a cost per ride basis, and full automation promises to reduce costs by 50% while providing additional safety and verified customer service. Connecting these ODT systems with efficient and effective intra-regional backbone transit service is the next step, with transit agencies like DART providing early results. This discussion will walk through the evidence for this postulated outcome and show results from a series of case-studies.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

DOE OSTI2023

The Development of the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model (PRAM)

Due to the advancements in real-time information communication technologies and sharing economies, rideshare services have gained significant momentum by offering dynamic and/or on-demand services. Rideshare service companies evolved from personal rideshare, where riders traveled solo or with known individuals, into pooled rideshare (PR), where riders can travel with one to multiple unknown riders. Similar to other shared economy services, pooled rideshare is beneficial as it efficiently utilizes resources, resulting in reduced energy usage, as well as reduced costs for the riders. However, previous research has demonstrated that riders have concerns about using pooled rideshare, especially regarding personal safety. A U.S. national survey with 5385 participants was used to understand human factor-related barriers and user preferences to develop a novel Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model (PRAM). This model used a covariance-based structural equation model (CB-SEM) to identify the relationships between willingness to consider PR factors (time/cost, privacy, safety, service experience, and traffic/environment) and optimizing one’s experience of PR factors (vehicle technology/accessibility, convenience, comfort/ease of use, and passenger safety), resulting in the higher-order factor trust service. We examined the factors’ relative contribution to one’s willingness/attitude towards PR and user acceptance of PR. Privacy, safety, trust service, and convenience were statistically significant factors in the model, as were the comfort/ease of use factor and the service experience, traffic/environment, and passenger safety factors. The only two non-significant factors in the model were time/cost and vehicle technology/accessibility; it is only when a rider feels safe that individuals then consider the additional non-significant variables of time, cost, technology, and accessibility. Privacy, safety, and service experience were factors that discouraged the use of PR, whereas the convenience factor greatly encouraged the acceptance of PR. Despite the time/cost factor’s lack of significance, individual items related to time and cost were crucial when viewed within the context of convenience. This highlights that while user perceptions of privacy and safety are paramount to their attitude towards PR, once safety concerns are addressed, and services are deemed convenient, time and cost elements significantly enhance their trust in pooled rideshare services. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of user acceptance of PR services and offers actionable insights for policymakers and rideshare companies to improve their services and increase user adoption.

dynamic rideshare system↗

DOE OSTI2025

The Influence of Demographic Variables on the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model Multigroup Analyses (PRAMMA)

Building on our prior research with a national survey sample of 5385 US participants, the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model (PRAM) was built upon two factor analyses. This exploratory study extends the PRAM framework using the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model Multigroup Analyses (PRAMMA) to examine how 16 demographic variables influence and interact with the acceptance of Pooled Rideshare (PR), filling a gap in understanding user segmentation and personalization. Using a national sample of 5385 US participants, this methodological approach allowed for the evaluation of how PRAM variables such as safety, privacy, service experience, and environmental impact vary across diverse groups, including gender, generation, driver’s license, rideshare experience, education level, employment status, household size, number of children, income, vehicle ownership, and typical commuting practices. Factors such as convenience, comfort, and passenger safety did not show significant differences across the moderators, suggesting their universal importance across all demographics. Furthermore, geographical differences did not significantly impact the relationships within the model, suggesting consistent relationships across different regions. The findings highlight the need to move beyond a “one size fits all” approach, demonstrating that tailored strategies may be crucial for enhancing the adoption and satisfaction of PR services among various demographic groups. The analyses provide valuable insight for policymakers and rideshare companies looking to optimize their services and increase user engagement in PR.

moderator↗

DOE OSTI2021

The Role of Mobility Data Hubs in an Integrated Decarbonized Transportation Future

The landscape for connected mobility ecosystems is evolving rapidly as information and communication technologies lower the cost and complexity of connecting people to places, integrating transportation modes and collecting data regarding such movements. These developments have been key to unlocking new business opportunities, particularly through mobility services. While the mechanisms for data collection, processing, and transfer have made significant advances in the past decade, the broader landscape of mobility data architectures and data users remains largely unresolved. It is unclear as to whether the result will converge towards a framework that resembles a coherent quilt or a disjointed patchwork of competing visions. Initial approaches to mobility data collection and provisioning have been largely siloed - by mode or software - or held for exclusive use, however several key players are quickly realizing the need and opportunities enabled through integrated mobility data eco-systems, or mobility data hubs as referred to in this paper. As the business case for hosting mobility data hubs evolves, there is great uncertainty regarding their impact to either advance or exacerbate sustainable mobility (e.g., seamless connectivity across modes, decreased energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, etc.). Groups such as the United Nations and World Bank have identified data platforms as a key enabler of realizing environmental and social benefits. If designed with decarbonization in mind, we hypothesize that enhanced observability provided by these ever-expanding mobility data hubs can facilitate energy and emissions reductions that are otherwise limited by transactional barriers and knowledge asymmetry that is inherent to a more siloed approach. In this sense, integration of mobility data can help to create a competitive playing field where value is not determined by exclusivity of data, but rather the quality and uniqueness of a given service. The goals of this paper are to 1) identify key players and data architectures that are emerging in a service-based mobility market, 2) explore several use cases where mobility data hubs have enabled greater sustainability outcomes, and 3) discuss key issues that will need to be resolved to fully leverage emerging mobility data hubs towards a sustainable transportation future.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,MATHEMATICS AND COMPUT↗

DOE OSTI2020

Ground Transportation at Airports: Ridehailing Uptake and Travel Shifts to Test Mode Choice Modeling Assumption

Ground transportation at airports poses a unique opportunity to understand mode shifts after introduction of ride-hailing services. Using five years of monthly transaction data for five modes (transit, parking, car rental, taxis, and ride-hailing) at the Seattle-Tacoma and Denver airports, this paper presents findings on how ride-hailing uptake impacts mode share for ground transportation trips to and from the airport. More specifically, the results explore how well the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives facilitates estimation and forecasts prediction used in travel demand modeling for the uptake of new modes, as simply drawing from present modes in proportion to their existing shares.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2026

Launch Alaska Transportation and Energy Accelerator (LATEA)

The Launch Alaska Transportation and Energy Accelerator (LATEA), funded through the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Commercialization’s Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC),advanced deployment of innovative and efficient transportation and energy technology in Alaska from October 2021 through June 2025. The project was designed to leverage Launch Alaska’s accelerator model to identify, recruit, and support transportation technology companies with novel solutions to market needs while building the stakeholder networks, demonstration opportunities, and institutional capacity necessary to accelerate commercialization in one of the most challenging operating environments in the United States.

08 HYDROGEN↗

NASA NTRS2016

Managing a Safe and Successful Multi-User Spaceport

Encouraged by the creation of the Office of Commercial Space Transportation within the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1984 and the Commercial Space Act of 1998, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) now relies on an extensive network of support from commercial companies and organizations. At NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), this collaboration opens competitive opportunities for launch providers, including repurposing underutilized Shuttle Program resources, constructing new facilities, and utilizing center services and laboratories. The resulting multi-user spaceport fosters diverse activity, though it engenders risk from hazards associated with various spaceflight processing activities. The KSC Safety & Mission Assurance (S&MA) Directorate, in coordination with the center's Spaceport Integration and Center Planning & Development organizations, has developed a novel approach to protect NASA's workforce, critical assets, and the public from hazardous, space-related activity associated with KSC's multi-user spaceport. For NASA KSC S&MA, the transformation to a multi-user spaceport required implementing methods to foster safe and successful commercial activity while resolving challenges involving: Retirement of the Space Shuttle program; Co-location of multiple NASA programs; Relationships between the NASA programs; Complex relationships between NASA programs and commercial partner operations in exclusive-use facilities; Complex relationships between NASA programs and commercial partner operations in shared-use facilities. NASA KSC S&MA challenges were met with long-term planning and solutions involving cooperation with the Spaceport Integration and Services Directorate. This directorate is responsible for managing active commercial partnerships with customer advocacy and services management, providing a dedicated and consistent level of support to a wide array of commercial operations. This paper explores these solutions, their relevance to the current commercial space industry, and the challenges that continue to drive improvement with a focus on areas of safety management and risk assessment that have been crucial in KSC's evolution into a multi-user spaceport. These solutions may be useful to government entities and private companies looking to partner with the commercial space industry.

Range↗

DOE OSTI2021

A modeling framework for designing and evaluating curbside traffic management policies at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport

Emerging mobility technologies are changing the transportation system landscape. This is especially evident at airports, such as the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). Without careful analysis, these changes could lead to inefficient and costly airport operations. This paper presents a modeling framework that integrates travel mode encoding, demand projection, and microsimulation to enable airports to develop, simulate, and evaluate curbside traffic managements policies and measure their impact. Here, the framework is utilized to analyze several traffic scenarios and policies for DFW: a baseline scenario which represents DFW traffic pattern as observed in 2018 and projected to 2045, a transit network company (TNC) electrification policy, a TNC queuing policy, a policy that increased transit ridership, a bus-only policy which considers the use of only buses inside DFW, an autonomous vehicle (AV) policy which investigates the impact of autonomous vehicle (AV) adoption on airport operations, and an example COVID-19 scenario which models the impact of the COVID19 pandemic. The simulations’ results demonstrate that: increasing the DFW transit ridership postpones the need for airport curbside expansion the most; encouraging shared-mobility with the bus-only policy produces the most savings in curbside congestion delays; automation and electrification for all passenger vehicle trips to/from DFW generates the most saving in fuel consumption and emissions; and uncontrolled AV adoption incurs the highest increase in fuel consumption, delay, and emissions and could require immediate airport capacity extension. Without policy intervention or investment in additional infrastructure capacity, these results predict the current operations would face significant congestion on high demand days starting as early as 2028. While derived in close partnership with DFW, the methodology presented here can be generalized to any airport.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Critical Minerals and Materials Matchmaker-CM3

This is the Critical Minerals and Materials Matchmaker (CM3) survey form. CM3 is an online information resource created to help connect users across the critical minerals and materials supply chain. The survey is designed to allow organizations to self-identify their critical minerals and materials-aligned activities and interests, and an interactive map that displays those on-going activities in a dynamic way. To include your critical minerals management activity or activities in CM3, please open and fill out the Critical Minerals and Materials Survey. If your organization has many ongoing or planned activities that would be onerous to enter in the form, or if your activities are difficult to geolocate (such as a transport network), please email the team at edxspatial@netl.doe.gov. This initiative is aligned with the approach of DOE’s H2 Matchmaker and Carbon Matchmaker. Read more information on H2 Matchmaker and Carbon Matchmaker. Below are some questions to help understand if you should fill out the CM3 survey: Does your company work with elements such as lithium, cobalt, copper, graphite, nickel, rare earth minerals, or platinum group metals? Does your organization have research and development activities related to critical materials or their supply chains? Does your company currently work in the critical minerals or materials supply chain? Do you have prospective work in critical minerals or materials in the next 5 years? Does your company mine, process, refine or distribute critical minerals or materials? Do you want to network with other facilities or organizations working in the same areas? Are you curious about the critical mineral and material activity in your surrounding area? Are you interested in aligning your potential needs across the supply chain to different geographic areas within the U.S? For more information, please see the CM3 website (https://www.energy.gov/fecm/articles/critical-minerals-materials-matchmaker-cm3) or email our team at edxspatial@netl.doe.gov.

CM3↗