Travel Behavior of Car Travelers with the Presence of Park-and-Ride Facilities and Autonomous Vehicles

Travelers' behavior is predicted based on their individual preferences. People search for alternatives to maximize their benefit from doing activities, such as increasing the activity time by minimizing the travel time. Traffic congestion and the scarcity of parking spaces in the city center motivate the decision-makers to encourage travelers to use the park-and-ride (P&R) system. An evaluation concerning the impact of using the P&R system on the travel behavior of car users is conducted. Some of the existing P&R facilities are incorporated into the daily activity plans of car travelers to produce new daily activity plans (i.e., P&R facility is considered an activity). By using the Multi-Agent Transport Simulation (MATSim) open-source tool, simulations of the daily activity plans including the P&R system and autonomous vehicles (AVs) are conducted. The study examines three scenarios: (1) a simulation of the existing condition, (2) a simulation of the daily activity plans of the travelers with the P&R system, and (3) a simulation of the daily activity plans of the travelers with the P&R system and AVs. The results show that using the P&R system increases the overall travel time compared with the existing conditions, and the use of AVs as a transport mode impacts the existing modal share as follows: 64 % of the car users switch to AVs, while 15 % of the car users switch to public transport. The output of this study might be used by policy-makers in parking pricing and the location of the P&R facilities.