Ridesharing company

A ridesharing company (also known as a transportation network company, ride-hailing service; the vehicles are called app-taxis or e-taxis) is a company that, via websites and mobile apps, matches passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire that, unlike taxicabs, cannot legally be hailed from the street. The legality of ridesharing companies by jurisdiction varies; in some areas they have been banned and are considered to be illegal taxicab operations. Regulations can include requirements for driver background checks, fares, caps on the number of drivers in an area, insurance, licensing, and minimum wage. The term "ridesharing" has been used by many international news sources, including The Washington Post, CNN, BBC News, The New York Times, the Associated Press, and the Los Angeles Times. Groups representing drivers, including Rideshare Drivers United and The Rideshare Guy (Harry Campbell), also use the term "rideshare", since "hailing" rideshare cars from the street is illegal. Usage is inconsistent, with the same publication or the same article sometimes using both "ridesharing" and "ridehailing". In January 2015, the Associated Press Stylebook, the authority that sets many of the news industry's grammar and word use standards, officially adopted the term "ride-hailing" to describe the services offered by these companies, claiming that "ridesharing" doesn't accurately describe the services since not all rides are shared, and "ride-sourcing" only is accurate when drivers provide rides for income. While the Associated Press recommended the use of "ride-hailing" as a term, it noted that, unlike taxicabs, ridesharing companies cannot pick up street hails. Carpooling was popular in the mid-1970s due to the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis. The first employee carpools/vanpools were organized then at Chrysler and 3M. In the 1990s, carpooling was popular among college students, where campuses have limited parking space. The feasibility of further development of carpooling was investigated although the comprehensive technologies were not commercially available yet at the time.

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Carpool

Carpooling is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car, and prevents the need for others to have to drive to a location themselves. By having more people using one vehicle, carpooling reduces each person's travel costs such as: fuel costs, tolls, and the stress of driving. Carpooling is also a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way to travel as sharing journeys reduces air pollution, carbon emissions, traffic congestion on the roads, and the need for parking spaces.

Private transport

Private transport (as opposed to public transport) is the personal or individual use of transportation which are not available for use by the general public, where in theory the user can decide freely on the time and route of transit ('choice rider' vs. 'captive rider'), using vehicles such as: private car, company car, bicycle, dicycle, self-balancing scooter, motorcycle, scooter, aircraft, boat, snowmobile, carriage, horse, etc., or recreational equipment such as roller skates, inline skates, sailboat, sailplane, skateboard etc.

Taxi

A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice. This differs from public transport where the pick-up and drop-off locations are decided by the service provider, not by the customers, although demand responsive transport and share taxis provide a hybrid bus/taxi mode.

Intro to Traffic Flow Modeling and Intelligent Transport Systems

Learn how to describe, model and control urban traffic congestion in simple ways and gain insight into advanced traffic management schemes that improve mobility in cities and highways.

Intro to Traffic Flow Modeling and Intelligent Transport Systems

Learn how to describe, model and control urban traffic congestion in simple ways and gain insight into advanced traffic management schemes that improve mobility in cities and highways.

A data fusion approach for ride-sourcing demand estimation: A discrete choice model with sampling and endogeneity corrections

Michel Bierlaire, Prateek Bansal

Ride-sourcing services offered by companies like Uber and Didi have grown rapidly in the last decade. Understanding the demand for these services is essential for planning and managing modern transportation systems. Existing studies develop statistical mod ...

2023

Hierarchical Pricing Game for Balancing the Charging of Ride-Hailing Electric Fleets

Nikolaos Geroliminis, Nils Gustav Nilsson, Marko Maljkovic

Due to the ever-increasing popularity of ride-hailing services and the indisputable shift towards alternative fuel vehicles, the intersection of the ride-hailing market and smart electric mobility provides an opportunity to trade different services to achi ...

2023

Modeling and Optimization of Ridesplitting Operations

Caio Vitor Beojone

Ridesourcing has driven a lot of attention in recent years with the expansion of companies like Uber, Lift, and many others around the world. Companies use mobile applications connected through the internet to match drivers and their passengers real-time. ...

EPFL2023