Simulation Testbed for Autonomic Demand-Responsive Mobility Systems

In this chapter, we describe an open-source simulation testbed for emerging autonomic mobility systems, in which transport vehicles and other resources are automatically managed to serve a dynamically changing transport demand. The testbed is designed for testing and evaluation of various planning, coordination and resource allocation mechanisms for the control and management of autonomic mobility systems. It supports all stages of the experimentation process, from the implementation of tested control mechanisms and the definition of experiment scenarios through simulation execution up to the analysis and interpretation of the results. The testbed aims to accelerate the development of control mechanisms for autonomic mobility systems and to facilitate their mutual comparison using well-defined benchmark scenarios. We also demonstrate how it can be used to select the most suitable control mechanism for a specific use case and to approximate operational costs and initial investments needed to deploy a specific autonomic mobility system.