Caracterizando sistemas de compartilhamento de veículos

Abstract

Human interactions and its dynamics are highly related to population daily routines on urban spaces. For example, during a day, the telecommunication infrastructure demands following the spatial and temporal dynamics of the city population. For example, for a day, the telecommunications infrastructure of a city follows the spatial and temporal dynamics of its users, as the phone network, that during work hours are more demanded in city central areas. In this sense, the understanding of the mobility on urban spaces is useful for the creation of smarter and sustainable cities. However, getting data about urban mobility is still a challenge. In many cases, only a few companies have access to accurate and updated data. These data are also privacy sensitive which turns its acquisition even harder.Therefore, generating models that represent human behavior in large urban centers is important from two perspectives: first, it allows research on the subject, without the need to acquire the sensitive data, second, it allows the development and testing of new systems for smart cities. In this work, we characterize three distinct car-sharing systems which operate in Vancouver (Canada) and nearby regions, gathering data for more than one year. There are currently three best known models of these services: The two-way model, where a user rents a vehicle at a station and must return it at the same station of origin; The one-way model where a user pickup a vehicle from a base station and leaves it on any other; Finally, the free-floating model, where the user is not attached to stations and can leave the vehicle in any public place within a delimited area of the city. Our study uncovers patterns of users’ habits and demands in these services. We highlight the common characteristics and the main differences of these services. Finally, we believe our study is useful to provide data for generating realistic synthetic workloads, also contributing to the evolution of these systems and to better urban planning.