An agent-based simulation model for distributed vehicle sharing operations

Vehicle sharing can increase the efficiency of transportation infrastructures and improve environmental sustainability. A distributed operation model is needed to improve a vehicle's intelligence and autonomy. In this research, we develop an agent-based simulation model for a linear transportation system to evaluate three different vehicle sharing operations that include: 1) an independent operation where vehicles are isolate, 2) a centralized operation which assumes a central supervisor agent controls all the vehicles, and 3) a distributed operation where vehicles can communicate with others and make decisions by themselves. Our simulation results demonstrate that: 1) the centralized and distributed models are significantly better than the independent model for large car capacity, 2) centralized model performs significantly better than the distributed model for large car capacity and small communication range, and 3) the distributed model can perform better than the centralized model for large car capacity and communication range.