Is Predictive Routing of Empty Cars Will Enhance Future of Ridesharing?

Researchers are planning to explore a new ridesharing model to elevate the availability of vehicles by routing empty cars.

FREMONT, CA: Some ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft dispatch a vehicle once a rider demands a ride. Whether or not one is nearby is a matter of chance. Researchers are planning to introduce a new model of ridesharing to increase the availability of vehicles by routing empty cars.

Most of the time, what happens is that to initiate on a passenger, all the rideshare start off waiting for a rider call upon a car.  If an empty vehicle is available, the passenger occupies that car and travels to his or her destination. If no empty car is available within a short period, the passenger abandons that orders either trying another rideshare service or an alternative form of transportation.

From the driver's viewpoint, when a driver drops off a traveler, should the driver remain around there to hopefully find new travelers promptly or migrate without a traveler to the next location, risking time spent driving without a traveler and without getting paid?

Now the question arises how does a rideshare company ensure a car is available?

As per New research published in the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) journal Operations Research, there is a method to control the flow of empty cars to cut down wait times and make efficient use of the vehicles in service at any given time. The research was performed by Anton Braverman of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Jim Dai of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Cornell University, Lei Ying of the University of Michigan and Xin Liu of Arizona State University.

Algorithms created by the analysts direct an empty vehicle after it drops off a traveler to an alternate area as opposed to holding up at a similar area to coordinate the geographic irregularity of passenger requests.

Driving void vehicles to a particular area after a traveler has been dropped off is, by all means, misuse of resources. Nonetheless, it ends up being essential and basic to boost the availability of rideshare services within the presence of the geographic irregularity of travelers.