Dynamic incentive scheme for rental vehicle fleet management

Mobility on Demand is a new transportation paradigm aimed to provide sustainable transportation in urban settings with a fleet of electric vehicles. Usage scenarios prpopsed by Mobility on Demand systems must allow one-way rentals. However, one-way rentals bring significant challenges to fleet management because areas of high demand will tend to lose their inventory, whereas areas of low demand will tend to accumulate inventory. Dynamic incentives can be provided to encourage different usage patterns and alleviate the problem of demand asymmetry. This thesis proposes a dynamic incentive scheme for rental vehicle fleet management in the context of Mobility on Demand. Simulation using Vienna taxi data shows the scheme to be effective at maintaining the equalibrium state of the fleet. It holds great promise to be incorporated in a real-world deployment of Mobility on Demand system.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Zhou, SiZhi

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kent Larson.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77454

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/77454