Heuristic Algorithms for the Dynamic Taxipooling Problem Based on Intelligent Transportation System Technologies

The convergence of the intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies has given rise to new opportunities for creative and incentive taxi services such as taxipooling. Taxipooling is similar to carpooling which is based on the idea that sets of users having the same travel destination and sharing vehicles. This paper presents two heuristic algorithms based on greedy method and the time-space network for the case of one origin to many destinations ("one- to-many") and many origins to one destination ("many-to-one"). These algorithms are used to support a field trial at Taipei Nei-Hu Science and Technology Park in Taiwan. The results of numerical tests have demonstrated that the outcomes of these heuristic algorithms are fairly plausible.