The 20th and 21st joint COTA International Conference of Transportation Professionals (CICTP 2020-21)

Carsharing has gained growing popularity over recent years. However, demand fluctuation and vehicle usage cause the vehicle-user imbalance problem in a carsharing system. Two strategies, vehicle relocation based on professional operators and trip pricing imposed on vehicle users, are adopted to address the imbalance problem by intervening the demand pattern and supply distribution. For one-way station-based carsharing systems, a nonlinear programming model is proposed to determine the optimal dynamic trip price, vehicle relocation and operator assignment schemes to maximize the system profit. Then a case study based on a one-way carsharing system in Shanghai is conducted to test the model and explore the performance of the carsharing service. The impacts of the vehicle and operator numbers on the system profit and served demand amount are first analyzed, a sensitivity analysis on the demand elasticity is conducted, and the cost structures under different vehicle and operator numbers are further assessed.

CICTP