Design for shared autonomous vehicle (SAV) system employing electrified vehicles: Comparison of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs)

Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs), which combine autonomous driving technology and car-sharing service, are expected to become essential parts of transportation systems in the near future. Existing studies related to SAV system design and optimization have focused on shared autonomous battery electric vehicle (SABEV) systems using battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as SAVs. As fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) emerge as alternative fuel vehicles, the SAV system needs to be extended to shared autonomous fuel cell electric vehicle (SAFCEV) systems employing FCEVs as SAVs. This study newly presents a design framework of an SAFCEV system based on a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) model. Optimization is conducted for SABEV and SAFCEV systems to minimize the total cost while satisfying the customer wait time constraint. Compared to the SABEV system, SAFCEV system shows a decrease of system fleet size of 9.8% (9 fleets) and an increase of driving range of 108.8% (148.6 km). Total cost of SAFCEV system is 1.6% ($54,857) lower than that of the SABEV system, indicating that SAFCEV can be more cost effective than SABEV. Several observations on various operating environments of SABEV and SAFCEV systems are obtained from parametric studies. In the case of a hybrid system that simultaneously operates SABEV and SAFCEV, the total cost is reduced by 0.8% ($25,852) compared to when only SAFCEV is operated. This study verifies the potential of FCEV as SAV and presents design directions for SABEV and SAFCEV systems.