IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transb/v132y2020icp340-357.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ride-Sourcing modeling and pricing in non-equilibrium two-sided markets

Author

Listed:
  • Nourinejad, Mehdi
  • Ramezani, Mohsen

Abstract

Ride-sourcing is a prominent transportation mode because of its cost-effectiveness and convenience. It provides an on-demand mobility platform that acts as a two-sided market by matching riders with drivers. The conventional models of ride-sourcing systems are equilibrium-based, discrete, and suitable for strategic decisions. This steady-state approach is not suitable for operational decision-making where there is noticeable variation in the state of the system, denying the market enough time to balance back into equilibrium. We introduce a dynamic non-equilibrium ride-sourcing model that tracks the time-varying number of riders, vacant ride-sourcing vehicles, and occupied ride-sourcing vehicles. The drivers are modeled as earning-sensitive, independent contractor, and self-scheduling and the riders are considered price- and quality of service-sensitive such that the supply and demand of the ride-sourcing market are endogenously dependent on (i) the fare requested from the riders and the wage paid to the drivers and (ii) the rider’s waiting time and driver’s cruising time. The model enables investigating how the dynamic wage and fare set by the ride-sourcing service provider affect supply, demand, and states of the market such as average waiting and search time especially when drivers can freely choose their work shifts. Furthermore, we propose a controller based on the model predictive control approach to maximize the service provider’s profit by controlling the fare requested from riders and the wage offered to drivers to satisfy a certain quality of market performance. We assess three pricing strategies where the fare and wage are (i) time-varying and unconstrained, (ii) time-varying and constrained so that the fare is higher than the wage such that the instantaneous profit is positive, and (iii) time-invariant and fixed. The proposed model and controller enable the ride-sourcing service provider to offer a wage to the drivers that is higher than the fare requested from the riders. The result demonstrates that this myopic loss can potentially lead to higher overall profit when customer demand (i.e., riders who may opt to use the ride-sourcing system) increases while the supply of ride-sourcing vehicles decreases simultaneously.

Suggested Citation

  • Nourinejad, Mehdi & Ramezani, Mohsen, 2020. "Ride-Sourcing modeling and pricing in non-equilibrium two-sided markets," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 340-357.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transb:v:132:y:2020:i:c:p:340-357
    DOI: 10.1016/j.trb.2019.05.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261518311500
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.trb.2019.05.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gérard P. Cachon & Kaitlin M. Daniels & Ruben Lobel, 2017. "The Role of Surge Pricing on a Service Platform with Self-Scheduling Capacity," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 19(3), pages 368-384, July.
    2. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    3. John R. Schroeter, 1983. "A Model of Taxi Service under Fare Structure and Fleet Size Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 81-96, Spring.
    4. Qian, Xinwu & Ukkusuri, Satish V., 2017. "Taxi market equilibrium with third-party hailing service," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 43-63.
    5. Gonzales, Eric J., 2016. "Demand responsive transit systems with time-dependent demand: User equilibrium, system optimum, and management strategyAuthor-Name: Amirgholy, Mahyar," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 92(PB), pages 234-252.
    6. Yang, Hai & Yang, Teng, 2011. "Equilibrium properties of taxi markets with search frictions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 696-713, May.
    7. Yang, Hai & Leung, Cowina W.Y. & Wong, S.C. & Bell, Michael G.H., 2010. "Equilibria of bilateral taxi-customer searching and meeting on networks," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(8-9), pages 1067-1083, September.
    8. Ramezani, Mohsen & Haddad, Jack & Geroliminis, Nikolas, 2015. "Dynamics of heterogeneity in urban networks: aggregated traffic modeling and hierarchical control," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-19.
    9. Ricardo Lagos, 2000. "An Alternative Approach to Search Frictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 851-873, October.
    10. Rahimi, Mahour & Amirgholy, Mahyar & Gonzales, Eric J., 2018. "System modeling of demand responsive transportation services: Evaluating cost efficiency of service and coordinated taxi usage," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 66-83.
    11. Yang, Hai & Wong, S. C. & Wong, K. I., 2002. "Demand-supply equilibrium of taxi services in a network under competition and regulation," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 799-819, November.
    12. Henry S. Farber, 2015. "Why you Can’t Find a Taxi in the Rain and Other Labor Supply Lessons from Cab Drivers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(4), pages 1975-2026.
    13. Wong, K. I. & Wong, S. C. & Yang, Hai, 2001. "Modeling urban taxi services in congested road networks with elastic demand," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 819-842, November.
    14. Qian, Xinwu & Zhang, Wenbo & Ukkusuri, Satish V. & Yang, Chao, 2017. "Optimal assignment and incentive design in the taxi group ride problem," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 208-226.
    15. Hai Yang & Min Ye & Wilson Hon-Chung Tang & Sze Chun Wong, 2005. "A Multiperiod Dynamic Model of Taxi Services with Endogenous Service Intensity," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 501-515, June.
    16. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    17. Masoud, Neda & Jayakrishnan, R., 2017. "A decomposition algorithm to solve the multi-hop Peer-to-Peer ride-matching problem," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-29.
    18. Djavadian, Shadi & Chow, Joseph Y.J., 2017. "An agent-based day-to-day adjustment process for modeling ‘Mobility as a Service’ with a two-sided flexible transport market," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 36-57.
    19. Yang, Hai & Ye, Min & Tang, Wilson H. & Wong, S.C., 2005. "Regulating taxi services in the presence of congestion externality," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 17-40, January.
    20. Wong, K.I. & Wong, S.C. & Yang, Hai & Wu, J.H., 2008. "Modeling urban taxi services with multiple user classes and vehicle modes," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 985-1007, December.
    21. Wang, Xiaolei & He, Fang & Yang, Hai & Oliver Gao, H., 2016. "Pricing strategies for a taxi-hailing platform," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 212-231.
    22. Nourinejad, Mehdi & Roorda, Matthew J., 2014. "A dynamic carsharing decision support system," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 36-50.
    23. Xu, Zhengtian & Yin, Yafeng & Zha, Liteng, 2017. "Optimal parking provision for ride-sourcing services," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 559-578.
    24. Yang, Hai & Fung, C.S. & Wong, K.I. & Wong, S.C., 2010. "Nonlinear pricing of taxi services," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 337-348, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xu, Zhengtian & Yin, Yafeng & Chao, Xiuli & Zhu, Hongtu & Ye, Jieping, 2021. "A generalized fluid model of ride-hailing systems," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 587-605.
    2. Nair, Gopindra S. & Bhat, Chandra R. & Batur, Irfan & Pendyala, Ram M. & Lam, William H.K., 2020. "A model of deadheading trips and pick-up locations for ride-hailing service vehicles," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 289-308.
    3. Li, Yanan & Li, Xiang & Zhang, Sicheng, 2021. "Optimal pricing of customized bus services and ride-sharing based on a competitive game model," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    4. Tang, Wei & Xie, Ningke & Mo, Dong & Cai, Zeen & Lee, Der-Horng & Chen, Xiqun (Michael), 2023. "Optimizing subsidy strategies of the ride-sourcing platform under government regulation," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    5. Li, Manzi & Jiang, Gege & Lo, Hong K., 2022. "Pricing strategy of ride-sourcing services under travel time variability," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    6. Li, Sen & Yang, Hai & Poolla, Kameshwar & Varaiya, Pravin, 2021. "Spatial pricing in ride-sourcing markets under a congestion charge," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 18-45.
    7. Lee, Enoch & Cen, Xuekai & Lo, Hong K., 2021. "Zonal-based flexible bus service under elastic stochastic demand," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    8. Zhang, Yufeng & Khani, Alireza, 2021. "Integrating transit systems with ride-sourcing services: A study on the system users’ stochastic equilibrium problem," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 95-123.
    9. Yu, Jingru & Xie, Ningke & Zhu, Jiangtao & Qian, Yiwei & Zheng, Sijing & Chen, Xiqun (Michael), 2022. "Exploring impacts of COVID-19 on city-wide taxi and ride-sourcing markets: Evidence from Ningbo, China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 220-238.
    10. Zhu, Zheng & Xu, Ailing & He, Qiao-Chu & Yang, Hai, 2021. "Competition between the transportation network company and the government with subsidies to public transit riders," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    11. Di, Yining & Xu, Meng & Zhu, Zheng & Yang, Hai & Chen, Xiqun, 2022. "Analysis of ride-sourcing drivers' working Pattern(s) via spatiotemporal work slices: A case study in Hangzhou," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 336-351.
    12. Mo, Dong & Yu, Jingru & Chen, Xiqun Michael, 2020. "Modeling and managing heterogeneous ride-sourcing platforms with government subsidies on electric vehicles," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 447-472.
    13. Dong, Tingting & Xu, Zhengtian & Luo, Qi & Yin, Yafeng & Wang, Jian & Ye, Jieping, 2021. "Optimal contract design for ride-sourcing services under dual sourcing," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 289-313.
    14. Li, Manzi & Jiang, Gege & Lo, Hong K., 2023. "Optimal cancellation penalty for competing ride-sourcing platforms under waiting time uncertainty," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    15. Shi, Junxin & Li, Xiangyong & Aneja, Y.P. & Li, Xiaonan, 2023. "Ride-matching for the ride-hailing platform with heterogeneous drivers," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 169-192.
    16. Zhao, Meng & Li, Bin & Ren, Jiali & Hao, Zhihua, 2023. "Competition equilibrium of ride-sourcing platforms and optimal government subsidies considering customers’ green preference under peak carbon dioxide emissions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    17. Fayed, Lynn & Nilsson, Gustav & Geroliminis, Nikolas, 2023. "On the utilization of dedicated bus lanes for pooled ride-hailing services," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 29-52.
    18. Meijian Yang & Enjun Xia, 2021. "A Systematic Literature Review on Pricing Strategies in the Sharing Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-28, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Baicheng & Szeto, W.Y., 2021. "Modeling and analyzing a taxi market with a monopsony taxi owner and multiple rentee-drivers," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 1-22.
    2. Li, Baicheng & Szeto, W.Y., 2019. "Taxi service area design: Formulation and analysis," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 308-333.
    3. Yang, Hai & Yang, Teng, 2011. "Equilibrium properties of taxi markets with search frictions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 696-713, May.
    4. Ting Wang & Yong Zhang & Meiye Li & Lei Liu, 2019. "How Do Passengers with Different Using Frequencies Choose between Traditional Taxi Service and Online Car-Hailing Service? A Case Study of Nanjing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-18, November.
    5. Yang, Hai & Leung, Cowina W.Y. & Wong, S.C. & Bell, Michael G.H., 2010. "Equilibria of bilateral taxi-customer searching and meeting on networks," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(8-9), pages 1067-1083, September.
    6. Chen, Xiqun (Michael) & Zheng, Hongyu & Ke, Jintao & Yang, Hai, 2020. "Dynamic optimization strategies for on-demand ride services platform: Surge pricing, commission rate, and incentives," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 23-45.
    7. Szeto, W.Y. & Wong, R.C.P. & Yang, W.H., 2019. "Guiding vacant taxi drivers to demand locations by taxi-calling signals: A sequential binary logistic regression modeling approach and policy implications," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 100-110.
    8. Wang, Hai & Yang, Hai, 2019. "Ridesourcing systems: A framework and review," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 122-155.
    9. Yu, Xinlian & Gao, Song & Hu, Xianbiao & Park, Hyoshin, 2019. "A Markov decision process approach to vacant taxi routing with e-hailing," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 114-134.
    10. Di, Xuan & Ban, Xuegang Jeff, 2019. "A unified equilibrium framework of new shared mobility systems," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 50-78.
    11. Yang, Jie & Zhao, Daozhi & Wang, Zeyu & Xu, Chunqiu, 2022. "Impact of regulation on on-demand ride-sharing service: Profit-based target vs demand-based target," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    12. Wong, R.C.P. & Szeto, W.Y. & Wong, S.C., 2014. "Bi-level decisions of vacant taxi drivers traveling towards taxi stands in customer-search: Modeling methodology and policy implications," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 73-81.
    13. Xu, Zhengtian & Yin, Yafeng & Zha, Liteng, 2017. "Optimal parking provision for ride-sourcing services," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 559-578.
    14. Fabien Leurent, 2019. "Microeconomics of a taxi service in a ring-shaped city," Working Papers hal-02047269, HAL.
    15. Long, Jiancheng & Szeto, W.Y. & Du, Jie & Wong, R.C.P., 2017. "A dynamic taxi traffic assignment model: A two-level continuum transportation system approach," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 222-254.
    16. Zhang, Kenan & Nie, Yu (Marco), 2021. "To pool or not to pool: Equilibrium, pricing and regulation," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 59-90.
    17. Sun, Luoyi & Teunter, Ruud H. & Babai, M. Zied & Hua, Guowei, 2019. "Optimal pricing for ride-sourcing platforms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 278(3), pages 783-795.
    18. Wang, Xiaolei & He, Fang & Yang, Hai & Oliver Gao, H., 2016. "Pricing strategies for a taxi-hailing platform," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 212-231.
    19. Thorsten Heilker & Gernot Sieg, 2017. "A duopoly of transportation network companies and traditional radio-taxi dispatch service agencies," Working Papers 24, Institute of Transport Economics, University of Muenster.
    20. Zha, Liteng & Yin, Yafeng & Du, Yuchuan, 2018. "Surge pricing and labor supply in the ride-sourcing market," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 117(PB), pages 708-722.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transb:v:132:y:2020:i:c:p:340-357. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/548/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.