In this paper, we study a one-to-one matching ride-sharing problem to save the travellers' total travel time considering travel time uncertainty. Unlike the existing work where the uncertainty set is assumed to be known or roughly estimated, in this work, we propose a learning-based robust optimization framework to handle the issue properly. Specifically, we assume the travel time varies in an uncertainty set which is predicted by a machine learning approach- ARIMA using travel time historical data, the predicted uncertainty set then serves as the input parameter for the robust optimization model. To evaluate the proposed approach, we conduct a group of numerical experiments based on New York taxi trip record data sets. The results show that our proposed data-driven robust optimization approach outperforms the robust optimization model with a given uncertainty set in terms of total travel time savings. Further, the proposed approach can improve the travel time savings up to 112.8%, and 34% by average. Most importantly, our proposed approach is capable of handling the uncertainty in a more effective way when the uncertainty degrees become high.

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We propose a data-driven optimization model to reduce riders' wait time for vehicle guidance and rebalancing operations, considering the rider demands are under uncertainty. Instead of assuming a pre-defined rider demand distribution, we propose a data-driven framework that integrates Mixture Density Networks (MDNs) and a two-stage stochastic programming model. The integrated framework can compute high-quality guidance and rebalancing solutions that benefit drivers and riders in the ride-hailing system by leveraging the time-series historical data from real data sets. To prove the performance and effectiveness of our approach, we conduct a group of simulations based on the New York High Volume For-Hire Vehicle (HVFHV) trip records. The validation results show that the proposed method outperforms the data-driven deterministic models using GRU and moving average methods. Most significantly, the riders' average wait time using our proposed approach can be reduced by 75.9% compared to the batched matching mechanism.

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In this paper, we propose a data-driven robust optimization model to reduce total travel cost in ride-sharing systems under travel time uncertainty. Instead of using a pre-defined uncertainty set, we study a data-driven robust optimization approach that integrates gated recurrent units (GRUs) predictions with a one-stage robust optimization model. The proposed approach has the ability to compute high quality solutions by leveraging the large-scale historical data to derive the uncertainty set for the designed robust optimization model. To evaluate the proposed approach, we conduct a group of simulations based on the New York taxi trip record data sets. The validation results show that our data-driven robust optimization approach outperforms the robust optimization approach with a pre-defined uncertainty set in terms of travellers' total travel cost. Most importantly, the total travel cost under the proposed approach is reduced by up to 31.7%, and by 26.7% on average compared with the robust model with a pre-defined uncertainty set.

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In ride-sharing services, travel time uncertainty significantly impacts the quality of matching solutions for both the drivers and the riders. This paper studies a one-to-many ride-sharing matching problem where travel time between locations is uncertain. The goal is to generate robust ride-sharing matching solutions that minimize the total driver detour cost and the number of unmatched riders. To this end, we formulate the ride-sharing matching problem as a robust vehicle routing problem with time window (RVRPTW). To effectively capture the travel time uncertainty, we propose a deep learning-based data-driven approach that can dynamically estimate the uncertainty sets of travel times. Given the NP-hard nature of the optimization problem, we design a hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm that can handle large-scale instances in a time-efficient manner. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we conduct a set of numeric experiments based on real traffic data. The results confirm that the proposed approach outperforms the non-data-driven one in several important performance metrics, including a proper balance between robustness and inclusiveness of the matching solution. Specifically, by applying the proposed data-driven approach, the matching solution violation rate can be reduced up to 85.8%, and the valid serving rate can be increased up to 42.3% compared to the non-data-driven benchmark.@en

Vehicle proactive guidance strategies are used by ride-hailing platforms to mitigate supply–demand imbalance across regions by directing idle vehicles to high-demand regions before the demands are realized. This article presents a data-driven stochastic optimization framework for computing idle vehicle guidance strategies. The objective is to minimize drivers’ idle travel distance, riders’ wait time, and the oversupply costs (OSCs) and undersupply costs (USCs) of the platform. Specifically, we design a novel neural network that integrates gated recurrent units (GRUs) with mixture density networks (MDNs) to capture the spatial-temporal features of the rider demand distribution.@en