Operations Planning in Carsharing Systems

Abstract

Shared mobility systems such as carsharing provide significant social and environmental benefits by reducing the number of vehicles used in the urban transport network. The carsharing systems are facing many challenges from the design to operation stages. In the design and strategic management level, it is important to find the best location for the stations, a minimum number of vehicles and a minimum number of operating staff, and in the operation stage, the most important problem is to relocate the vehicles moved by the members among the network to maximize the satisfied demands while the system is still economical. Effective and efficient optimization technology that can respond to user's demand is one of the necessary components for a successful carsharing system. The authors survey the related operations research models in the academic literature proposed to model different aspects of carsharing systems from a strategic and operational point of view to find the gaps and propose opportunities for new research.