Order dispatch optimization with considering flexible one-to-three matching strategy under hybrid ride-hailing service modes

ABSTRACT

In practice, the ride-hailing platform generally provides two products: express services and ridesplitting services, and driver resources are usually shared across these two products on the supply side, i.e., hybrid ride-hailing mode. This study tackles the order dispatch problem with considering flexible one-to-three matching strategy under hybrid modes. In this problem, if a driver serves express requests, only one order can be matched with; if a driver serves ridesplitting requests, this driver can be matched with at most three orders simultaneously or sequentially. Considering one-to-three matching, en-route matching, and multiple passengers per order, this problem is formulated as a multi-objective integer programming, a hierarchical approach is adopted to address it. Using the ride-hailing trip data, we examine characteristics of this problem, such as the impact of service priority and the benefits of one-to-three matching. Finally, some beneficial management implications are proposed to improve the operation of the ride-hailing service.

KEYWORDS:

• Hybrid ride-hailing service modes
• ridesplitting service
• express service
• order dispatch
• one-to-three matching strategy
• a hierarchical approach

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Scientific Research Startup Fund for Advanced Talents of Nanjing Forestry University (No. 163106065). The authors thank Didi Chuxing for providing the data. Data source: Didi Chuxing GAIA Initiative.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author Contributions

Xuefeng Li: Study conception and modeling, formal analysis, writing-original draft, writing-review and editing, visualization, validation. Mingyang Du: Study conception and modeling, formal analysis, writing-original draft, writing-review and editing, validation. Mei-Po Kwan: formal analysis, writing-review and editing.