Customer incentive rebalancing plan in free-float bike-sharing system with limited information
Name
sustainability-11-03088.pdf
Size
1.4 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
12d5062d38213db82d96d73d868672a6
Author(s)
Wu, Ruijing
Liu, Shaoxuan
Shi, Zhenyang
Date Issued
May 31, 2019
Journal
Sustainability
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Citation
Wu, Ruijing, Shaoxuan Liu, and Zhenyang Shi, "Customer incentive rebalancing plan in free-float bike-sharing system with limited information." Sustainability 11, 11 (May 2019): no. 3088 doi 10.3390/su11113088 ©2019 Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Free-float bike-sharing (FFBS) systems have increased in popularity as a sustainable travel mode in recent years, especially in the urban areas of China. Despite the convenience such systems offer to customers, it is not easy to maintain an effective balance in the distribution of bikes. This study considers the dynamic rebalancing problem for FFBS systems, whereby user-based tactics are employed by incentivizing users to perform repositioning activities. Motivated by the fact that the problem is frequently faced by FFBS system operators entering a new market with limited information on travel demand, we adopt the ranking and selection approach to select the optimal incentive plan. We describe the system dynamics in detail, and formulate a profit maximization problem with a constraint on customer service level. Through numerical studies, we first establish that our procedure can select the optimal incentive plan in a wide range of scenarios. Second, under our incentive plan, the profit and service level can be improved significantly compared with the scenario without incentive provision. Third, in most cases, our procedure can achieve the optimal solution with a reasonable sample size. Keywords: free-float bike-sharing; customer incentive-based rebalancing; simulation optimization; ranking and selection
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Transportation & Logistics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113088
