Wednesday, 15.30 - 16.15, HFB|B

Models and Optimization in Shared Mobility Systems

IT-based processes have fostered the rise of shared mobility business models in recent years. In order to play a major role in people’s future transportation, reliable shared mobility services have to be ensured. The availability of a shared vehicle at the point in time and location of spontaneously arising customer demand is recognized as  requirement to replace individual vehicle ownership in the long term. Methodological support for shared mobility systems can draw on operations research models originally developed in the field of logistics. We give an overview on optimization models with regard to network design, transportation, inventory, routing, pricing and maintenance that have been adopted to operational support of shared mobility systems. For instance, the problem of relocating bikes over time in a station-based bike sharing system can be formulated as  service network design problem. We show that next to the coverage of routing, the problem formulation incorporates inventory and  transportation decisions. The fact that the number of bikes is kept constant  over time is depicted by asset management constraints. A matheuristic is proposed to solve this problem to near optimality. Tailored techniques are to be developed in order to cope with these complex problems.           

Dirk Christian Mattfeld is full professor of decision support in the business information systems engineering group at Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. His research focuses on the efficient use of resources in urban logistics and shared mobility. These interests comprise work in analytics, modelling and optimization. Dirk Christian Mattfeld has graduated from Universität Bremen and has been affiliated with Universität Hamburg and Technische Universität Braunschweig. With respect to GOR, he chaired the GOR working group on logistics and traffic from 2002 to 2010.