On understanding the impacts of shared public transportation on urban traffic and road safety using an agent-based simulation with heterogeneous fleets: a case study of Casablanca city.

Simulation and computer modeling have a key role in understanding transportation systems. Focusing on the main system, real-time retrieval of outputs based on mutual interactions of the whole autonomous entities makes the agent-based simulation very promising. This paper deals with an agent-based simulation to investigate and evaluate the potential impacts of implementing Shared Public Transports (SPT) in urban areas. Such a system is intended to integrate the two flows of passengers and containerized freights in Public Transportation (PT) patterns towards more sustainable, efficient, and socially suitable mobility. The proposed model is coupled with a stochastic process in order to provide a range of real-world data of Casablanca city (Morocco) based on institutional surveys. In this respect, two urban transportation systems of freight are tested: (1) the conventional transportation system, (2) the SPT system with heterogeneous fleets. In an effort to sustain efficient and safe movements, this paper examines SPT performances according to a set of key evaluation metrics. Results show that PT stopping remains the most relevant factor when evaluating metrics of the number of waiting containers and waiting time of demand by rates of 82.440% and 62.580%, respectively. Such a waiting containers metric is significantly affected by the volume of demand to transport per time slot by a rate of 78.140%. Under SPT, traffic congestion is the main factor to consider in managing PT with a rate of 65.690% in order to reduce potential accidents. However, demand volume could increase the on-street illegal parking metric by 90.070%. More details are provided below.