Teleoperated or remote-controlled driving complements automated driving and acts as transitional technology toward full automation. An economic advantage of teleoperated driving in logistics operations lies in managing fleets with fewer teleoperators compared to vehicles with in-vehicle drivers. This alleviates growing truck driver shortage problems in the logistics industry and saves costs. However, a trade-off exists between the teleoperator-to-vehicle ratio and the service level of teleoperation. This study designs a simulation framework to explore this trade-off generating multiple performance indicators as proxies for teleoperation service level. By applying the framework, we identify factors influencing the trade-off and optimal teleoperator-to-vehicle ratios under different scenarios. Our case study on road freight tours in The Netherlands reveals that for any operational setting, a teleoperation-to-vehicle ratio below one can manage all freight truck tours without delay, while one represents the current situation. The minimum teleoperator-to-vehicle ratio for zero-delay operations is never above 0.6, implying a minimum of 40% teleoperation labor cost saving. For operations where a small delay is allowed, teleoperator-to-vehicle ratios as low as 0.4 are shown to be feasible, which indicates potential savings of up to 60%. This confirms great promise for a positive business case for the teleoperated driving as a service.

翻译：远程操控驾驶或遥控驾驶作为自动化驾驶的补充，是迈向全自动驾驶的过渡技术。在物流运营中，远程操控驾驶的经济优势在于，相比每车配备随车驾驶员，可以用更少的远程操作员管理车队。这缓解了物流行业日益严重的卡车司机短缺问题并节省成本。然而，远程操作员与车辆的比例与远程操控服务水平之间存在权衡关系。本研究设计了一个仿真框架，通过生成多个绩效指标作为远程操控服务水平的代理变量来探索这一权衡关系。应用该框架，我们识别了影响权衡关系的因素及不同场景下的最优远程操作员-车辆比例。我们对荷兰公路货运线路的案例研究表明，在任何运营场景下，低于1的远程操作员-车辆比例即可无延迟地管理所有货运卡车线路，而当前实际比例为1。零延迟运营所需的最低远程操作员-车辆比例从未超过0.6，这意味着至少可节省40%的远程操控劳动力成本。对于允许小幅延迟的运营场景，远程操作员-车辆比例可低至0.4，这表明潜在节约可达60%。这证实了远程操控驾驶服务具有积极的商业前景。