The taxi sharing practices: Matching, routing and pricing methods

Abstract

• Conduct a comprehensive review of the existing taxi sharing practices in cities. • Examine the key issues in taxi sharing: matching methods, route choice optimization models, and pricing schemes. • Establish a matching and routing joint optimization model. • Propose a fare sharing method that caters to complex combinations of passengers. Taxi sharing is becoming a trendy travel mode in an increasing number of cities. By encouraging two or more passengers to share a taxi, taxi sharing can cut down travel costs, reduce traffic emissions, and relieve traffic congestion. To promote taxi sharing, this paper first reviews the existing taxi sharing practices in cities. The entire process of taxi sharing can be broken up into the following: matching, route choice, and pricing. The current situation is revealed, as well as prospects for future developments. Building on the review, new approaches are proposed to taxi sharing matching, route choice modelling, and pricing schemes to improve taxi sharing practices and broaden their application.