A network equilibrium model for integrated shared mobility services with ride-pooling

Abstract

With the growing popularity of transportation network companies (TNC), there remains a gap in network equilibrium models that adequately address the emergence of ride-pooling service that pools two orders into one trip. This challenge arises from the need to enumerate all possible combinations of origin–destination (OD) pooling and sequencing. This paper proposes a network equilibrium framework that integrates ride-hailing platforms’ decision on vehicle dispatching and driver–passenger matching on congested road networks. To facilitate the representation of vehicle and passenger OD flows and ride-pooling options, a layered OD graph is created encompassing ride-sourcing and ride-pooling services over OD nodes. To capture road congestion, a connection between the layered OD graph and road networks is established where the vehicle flows on the OD graph form source demands on road networks. Numerical examples are performed on a toy example and the Sioux Fall network to demonstrate our model and algorithm. The proposed equilibrium framework can efficiently assist policymakers and urban planners to evaluate the impact of TNCs on traffic congestion.