A Petri Nets-Based Simulation Methodology for Modular Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Car-Sharing Networks

In the field of urban and green mobility, electric car-sharing networks have recently emerged as one of the promising alternatives, dealing with both environmental and transportation issues. Despite the increasing success of the shared mobility concept over the world, the design and management of such urban mobility systems implies strategic, tactical and operational challenges. To support designers and operators, all these issues constitute an emerging and challenging research topic, aiming to develop techniques and tools for modeling, analysis and optimization of such complex systems. In this contribution, based on the modeling and analysis power of stochastic timed Petri nets, a discrete event simulation approach is developed, taking into account their dynamic behavior complexities due to their self-service mode and characteristics including capacities of the stations, energy availability, rebalancing and maintenance activities. A real-life application is presented, to demonstrate the applicability and the potential of the proposed modeling and simulation analysis approach.
Note to Practitioners
—To support designers, providers and managers of shared mobility programs, performance and optimization models and decision-making tools are needed. In this contribution, we deals with a powerful and modular stochastic timed Petri net methodology suitable for performance modeling and simulation analysis of such complex dynamical systems. The authors believe that this discrete event dynamic approach has significant promise for the future and to influence economic viability and operational efficiency of such emerging urban transportation systems.