Enhancing Urban Mobility: Integrating Ride-Sharing and Public Transit

Abstract

Seamless integration of ride-sharing and public transit may offer fast, reliable, and affordable transfer to and from transit stations in suburban areas thereby enhancing mobility of residents. We investigate the potential benefits of such a system, as well as the ride-matching technology required to support it, by means of an extensive computational study. 1 Introduction People all around the world use private cars to travel to work. Most of these commuter trips are singleoccupant vehicle trips. In the U.S., for example, single-occupant trips represent approximately 77% of all commuter trips [Polzin and Pisarski, 2013]; similar percentages are found in Europe [European Environment Agency, 2010]. The low vehicle occupancy rates combined with the high number of trips during peak-hours often leads to severe traffic congestion in urban areas. The resulting stress and air pollution, caused by vehicle emissions, can have serious negative health effects. To reduce the negative externalities of car travel, local governments encourage the use of public transit. Unfortunately, many suburban and rural areas are not adequately served as they lack the population density to justify public transit, i.e., the public transit is not economically viable. In cities with sprawling suburban areas, the utilization of public transit to commute to work is often low, e.g., less than 5% in metropolitan areas like Houston and Atlanta [McKenzie, 2010]. To attract more riders from suburban areas to public transit, transportation agencies must find adequate solutions to accommodate the first and last mile from the riders' home to and from the transit stations. Possible solutions for a transportation agency include operating a fleet of demand-responsive feeder vehicles

Modeling Framework and Decomposition Scheme for On‐Demand Mobility Services with Ridesharing and Transfer

“…Stiglic et al. () investigated the benefits of integrating ride‐sharing services and public transit and showed that such integrated system can significantly enhance mobility and increase the use of public transport.…”