Fare Calculation for Metered Ride Sharing Vehicles

An analytical relationship is presented which expresses more accurately the metered taxi fare as a function of both the distance traveled and the time elapsed through meter incrementing. The analytical framework is used to derive further relationships among parameters of shared ride service. The application of such an approach is also evaluated regarding automated fare calculation for exclusive ride taxi and shared ride transit in advance of a trip (when the distance and time for the trip can be reliably estimated). In the application, reliable distance and time estimates are obtained from a data base originally generated from geographic and travel data files developed by metropolitan organizations, and continuously enhanced through trip data collection.