On the Supply of Autonomous Vehicles in Platforms

The likely large-scale deployment of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology in the near future has the potential to fundamentally change the transportation landscape. Due to the high cost of AV hardware, the most likely path to widespread AV use is via platforms that can sustain high utilization, such as ride-hailing and delivery services. In this paper, we consider four potential operational models to commercialize AVs, which we model as a supply chain game between a platform, an AV supplier, and human drivers that join as individual contractors (ICs). Our operational models include (1) an open platform that outsources the high capital burden of AVs by allowing the AV supplier and human drivers to bring their own vehicles into the system, (2) an AV-only platform that is operated independently by the AV supplier, (3) a platform that sources AVs from the supplier through leasing contracts, and (4) an integrated supply chain in which the same entity operates the platform and supplies the AVs. We use (4) as a benchmark to measure the performances of the other models.