A Ridesharing Model Based on Space-Time Prism for Shared Mobility

Objectives Ridesharing is an essential part of shared mobility for improving passengers' travel efficiency in cities. The existing studies usually determine shareable trips based on whether the arrival sequence of vehicles in more than one pick-up and drop-off points can meet the predefined spatiotemporal constraints. Such a simple approach cannot quickly and comprehensively find all the potential shareable trips under scenarios involving large-scale car-sharing requests.

Methods Based on the modeling method of space-time prism and the spatial-temporal expression of passengers' sharing willing, we first propose a potential spatiotemporal path area model of travel. Then, we apply the topological relation between the space-time prisms of trips for ridesharing identification, and quantify the strength of ridesharing of trips. Finally, two ridesharing matching strategies are proposed to simulate the ridesharing matching process in real-world transport environment.

Results The proposed ridesharing identification model can accurately delineate the potential space-time accessibility of vehicular travel, which makes it easier to discover all potential shareable trips and to realize the accurate and effective ridesharing identification.

Conclusions This study can be helpful for vehicle dispatching and passengers' travel planning in shared urban mobility system.