Technical Papers
Mar 31, 2020

Modeling Routing Behavior Learning Process for Vacant Taxis in a Congested Urban Traffic Network

Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146, Issue 6

Abstract

In this paper, we present a modeling framework and approach to capture vacant taxi drivers’ route choice behavior learning process and simulate their changes of routing decisions over time due to updated experiences of the traffic and passenger’s information. Efforts to unveil their behavioral learning process were rather limited, although some researchers focused on the modeling of routing behavior. We focused on the street-hailing of vacant taxi drivers, who selected a route to minimize the search time for picking-up a waiting customer along the road, which was determined by the traffic information and customer arrival rate. At the end of each learning cycle, or “learning day,” taxi drivers updated their knowledge on the traffic and passengers based on their newly gained experience, and made corresponding changes to their route choice at the next learning day until an optimal route had been found. Both analytical and numerical analysis were conducted on the Taipei traffic simulation network. The case study results showed that the proposed model was able to reasonably capture taxi drivers’ changes of route choice.

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Data Availability Statement

Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request, including the traffic network, O-D demand table, taxi passenger demand data, link travel time, and link volume.

Acknowledgments

The research was sponsored by the Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFB1600900) and Zhejiang province public welfare scientific research project (Grant No.LGF18E080003).

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Published In

Go to Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146Issue 6June 2020

History

Received: Feb 16, 2019
Accepted: Nov 5, 2019
Published online: Mar 31, 2020
Published in print: Jun 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Aug 31, 2020

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Authors

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Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO 65409. Email: [email protected]
Xianbiao Hu, A.M.ASCE [email protected]
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO 65409. Email: [email protected]
Hongsheng Qi [email protected]
Associate Professor, College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China (corresponding author). Email: [email protected]

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