Devunuri, Saipraneeth (2020-06). Examining Cost Aspects of Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAV) Operated as Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Master's Thesis.
Thesis
Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is rapidly developing and is predicted to have a significant impact on travel. One application of AV technology is Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAV), where a single AV is shared amongst several users. SAV may prove to be more cost-effective than ownership of personal vehicles. This could imply an increasing demand for ride-sharing services and autonomous taxis (aTaxi) and increasing use of Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Moreover, Shared Autonomous Electric Vehicles (SAEV) reduce two significant cost factors for ridesharing, driver, and fuel. Thus, SAEV could dramatically change the economics of offering ridesharing or aTaxi services and potentially compete with existing TNCs and vehicle ownership itself. Companies like Uber, Tesla, and Lyft are looking into various business models to capture this market. One such model is to incorporate a subscription-based pricing model, similar to Spotify or Netflix. This research evaluated a potential pricing structure for an autonomous ridesharing system under subscription-based pricing and compare it with existing ridesharing systems based on pay per ride and personal vehicles. The results show that a monthly fee of $170 can be charged per traveler with a per-mile cost varying between $0.31 and $0.71.
