Satisfying Social Preferences in Ridesharing Services

Abstract

Dynamic ridesharing services (DRS) play a major role in improving the efficiency of urban transportation. User satisfaction in dynamic ridesharing is determined by multiple factors such as travel time, cost, and social compatibility with co-passengers. Existing DRS optimize profit by maximizing the operational value for service providers or minimizing the travel time for users but they neglect the social experience of riders, which significantly influences the total value of the service to users. We propose DROPS, a dynamic ridesharing framework that factors the riders’ social preferences in the matching process so as to improve the quality of the trips formed. The trip formation is a multi-objective optimization that aims to maximize the operational value for the service provider, while simultaneously maximizing the value of the trip for the users. The user value is estimated based on compatibility between co-passengers and the ride time. We also present a real-time matching algorithm for trip formation. Finally, we evaluate our approach empirically using real-world taxi trips data, and a population model including social preferences based on user surveys. Our approach improves the user value and users’ social compatibility, without significantly affecting the vehicle miles for the service provider and travel time for users.