A Coverage Control-Based Idle Vehicle Rebalancing Approach for Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand Systems

As an emerging mode of urban transportation, autonomous mobility-on-demand (AMoD) systems show the potential in improving mobility in cities through timely and door-to-door services. However, the spatiotemporal imbalances between mobility demand and supply may lead to inefficiencies and a low quality of service. Vehicle rebalancing (i.e., dispatching idle vehicles to high-demand areas) is a potential solution for efficient AMoD fleet management. In this article, we formulate the vehicle rebalancing problem as a coverage control problem for the deployment of a fleet of mobile agents for AMoD operation in urban areas. Performance is demonstrated via microscopic simulations representing a large urban road network in Shenzhen, China. The results reveal the potential of the proposed method in improving service rates and decreasing passenger waiting times.