Equilibrium network design of shared-vehicle systems

Rahul Nair and Elise Miller-Hooks

European Journal of Operational Research, 2014, vol. 235, issue 1, 47-61

Abstract: An equilibrium network design model is formulated to determine the optimal configuration of a vehicle sharing program (VSP). A VSP involves a fleet of vehicles (bicycles, cars, or electric vehicles) positioned strategically across a network. In a flexible VSP, users are permitted to check out vehicles to perform trips and return the vehicles to stations close to their destinations. VSP operators need to determine an optimal configuration in terms of station locations, vehicle inventories, and station capacities, that maximizes revenue. Since users are likely to use the VSP resources only if their travel utilities improve, a generalized equilibrium based approach is adopted to design the system. The model takes the form of a bi-level, mixed-integer program. Model properties of uniqueness, inefficiency of equilibrium, and transformations that lead to an exact solution approach are presented. Computational tests on several synthetic instances demonstrate the nature of the equilibrium configuration, the trade-offs between operator and user objectives, and insights for deploying such systems.

Keywords: Equilibrium network design; Bi-level programs; Bicycle sharing; Car sharing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221713007741
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:235:y:2014:i:1:p:47-61

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2013.09.019

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().