Seminar Series: William C. Jordan

William C. Jordan
Independent Operations Research Consultant

“Driverless Vehicles and the “Mobility” Internet: Potential for Transformational Change (joint work with Lawrence D. Burns)”

While roadway transportation systems have evolved over 120 years, they have remained fundamentally the same from a system design perspective. The convergence of transportation, communications, information and energy technology now offers the potential for transformational change. Specifically,

• A “mobility” Internet allows precise coordination of everybody and everything that wants to move around and interact economically and socially
• Driverless vehicles free-up consumers to use their time as they please, eliminate/mitigate roadway crashes, allow more purposefully designed vehicles, and fundamentally shift the economics of mobility.

Taken together, new mobility system designs emerge that offer significant enhancement in consumer value. This presentation develops a queueing-based analytical framework for assessing the potential benefits of shared vehicles utilizing driverless vehicle technology and the precision control of the “mobility” internet. Results indicate that the accessibility benefits of personally owned cars could be realized at <10% of the total cost.