La voiture autonome a un brillant avenir dans le monde de l’économie participative. Une étude de LBNL chiffre la réduction des gaz à effet de serre ainsi que les économies d’énergie engendrées. Une autre chiffre la réduction de l’empreinte au sol …
Published in Environmental Science & Technology, the study compared a taxi fleet using driverless technology and electric vehicles (EVs) to the current taxi fleet. Using models built from more than 10 million taxi trips in New York City, the researchers found that using smaller cars with smaller batteries (a range of 80-145 kilometres) would be sufficient for the vast majority of trips, meaning cheaper build costs, though requiring the existing charger network to be tripled in size.
Co-author Jeffery Greenblatt said the EV industry was focused on the personal car market, meaning that it was spending efforts attempting to overcome “range anxiety”.
“The standard now is 200 miles [32km],” he said.
“We suspected you wouldn’t need as much for taxis. We found plenty of times during the day when a portion of taxis could slip off to recharge, even if just for a few minutes. This greatly reduces the need to have a big battery and therefore drives down cost.”
(…)
a new study out of the University of Toronto finding that driverless cars could increase parking lot capacity by 62 per cent.
“In a parking lot full of AVs, you don’t need to open the doors, so they can park with very little space in between,” University of Toronto Professor Matthew Roorda said.
”You also don’t need to leave space for each car to drive out, because you can signal the surrounding AVs to move out of the way.”
The Toronto researchers created a computer model to simulate the effects of various layouts for AV parking lots, and used an algorithm to optimise design, including minimising the number of relocations and maximising the proportion of the lot that was used for parking space versus space for relocation, entering or exiting.
Square-shaped AV parking lots could boost capacity even further, by up to 87 per cent, the study found.
The researchers said the boosted efficiency could mean much smaller parking lot footprints.
Professor Roorda said he hoped parking authorities could use the findings to improve design of new car parks and enhance urban spaces.
“Right now, our downtown cores have giant municipal parking lots next to major attractions,” he said.
“AVs could allow us to both shrink and relocate these parking lots, opening up valuable space in cities.”
Commentaire
Il y a de très nombreuses applications à la voiture autonome. Du point de vu des constructeurs, il est évidemment préférable que chacun en possède une. Mais la Smart City et un Smart Sustainable District Management System permettent une utilisation plus responsable aussi bien au niveau de la ville que de l’environnement.
l’article de LBNL : http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2018/03/28/fleet-of-automated-electric-taxis-could-deliver-environmental-and-energy-benefits/
