Mitigation of Vehicle Distribution in an EV Sharing Scheme for Last Mile Transportation

Last mile transportation, the movement of people and goods from a central hub to a final destination, is a challenging topic in implementing eco-friendly transport systems in modern cities. Much research has been focused on implementing a shared fleet of vehicles in achieving this goal. However, diverse commuter patterns as well as a large number of final destinations can lead to uneven distribution of the shared vehicles. In this paper, we propose and design a system platform for mitigation of vehicle distribution in an electric vehicle (EV) sharing scheme for last mile transportation by means of a remote driving approach. In this approach, a driver at a remote destination is enabled to maneuver the vehicle wirelessly and assist in the proper redistribution of the shared vehicle. Major technical challenges, such as handling wireless transmission latency, minimizing blind spots, and enhancing reliability, safety and security in the context of the remote driving system are identified and appropriate solutions are proposed and implemented. The developed system is validated with different performance-test measures and the outcomes are compared to that of normal driving. The results indicate that the proposed system platform can provide an adequate solution for last mile transportation through remote driving.