TNC and Fleet Vehicle Parking#
Shared mobility vehicles—including TNC (Transportation Network Company) vehicles and shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs)—follow operator-controlled parking strategies when they are idle (i.e., not serving a request, charging, repositioning, or undergoing maintenance). The parking behavior for fleet vehicles is distinct from personal vehicle parking: it is centrally managed by the operator’s strategy rather than by individual traveler choice models.
The figure below illustrates the idle-state decision flow for a TNC vehicle, showing how the operator strategy selects between parking, idling, charging, and repositioning—and how a new request interrupts any idle state.
When Fleet Vehicles Park#
After a TNC or SAV vehicle completes its last assigned request and has no pending tasks, the operator’s operational policy determines the vehicle’s next action. Parking is one of several possible idle-state decisions:
Park at a nearby location: The vehicle drives to a designated parking facility and idles there.
Idle in place: The vehicle remains at its current location without moving to a parking spot.
Other actions: The vehicle may instead be dispatched for charging, repositioning, or maintenance, depending on the operator’s strategy configuration.
The decision to park versus idle (or take other actions) depends on factors such as:
The vehicle’s current location (e.g., downtown vs. suburban areas)
The price and distance to nearby parking
Operator-level policies and strategy parameters
Parking Process for Fleet Vehicles#
When the operator strategy directs a vehicle to park:
The vehicle identifies a nearby parking facility using the same spatial indexing infrastructure as personal vehicles (R-tree queries by parking type).
The vehicle updates its status and drives toward the selected parking location on the network, following a route computed by the agent-based router.
Upon arrival, the vehicle is parked at the facility. The parking facility’s parking operation is invoked, marking the vehicle as parked and recording a parking event. The parking info is tagged as a TNC vehicle to distinguish fleet parking from personal vehicle parking.
The trip to the parking location is recorded as a TNC trip with a status reflecting the parking movement. Vehicle states, distances, and travel times for this trip are stored alongside all other TNC trip records.
Unparking and Dispatch#
When a new request arrives or the operator decides to reposition the vehicle:
The vehicle is unparked from its facility. The unparking operation finalizes the parking record (recording the exit time and computed cost) and pushes it to the demand database.
The vehicle status transitions from parked to active, and the vehicle proceeds to its next assignment.
Parking Records for Fleet Vehicles#
Parking records for TNC vehicles are stored in the same Parking_Records table as personal vehicle parking, but with the Is_TNC_Vehicle flag set to true. This enables differentiated analysis of fleet versus personal parking demand, occupancy, duration, and cost.
Configuring Fleet Parking Strategies#
Fleet parking behavior is controlled through the operator’s strategy configuration, specified in the fleet model file. Different operators can employ different parking strategies. The modular strategy framework allows parking decisions to be combined with other operational strategies (assignment, charging, repositioning) to define the overall fleet operational policy.
For details on the available parking strategies and their parameters, see the Operational Strategies documentation.