Network Equilibrium Of Urban Taxi Operation Under The Influence Of Mobile Trip Applications

Human society is developing in the intelligence and digital direction.In the field of urban traffic,'Internet Plus' technology has brought profound changes to the taxi industry.Mobile trip applications are a kind of taxi-hailing software,which is based on mobile phone.By matching information between supply and demand,the problem of high transaction costs caused by asymmetric information in the traditional taxi service mode is alleviated.Mobile trip applications make the taxi system present a diversified development trend.Therefore,the traditional theory needs to be reexamined,taking into account the new industrial form.In order to explore the characteristics of network equilibrium,the travel behavior of taxi driver(hereinafter referred to as the taxi)and taxi's passengers(hereinafter referred to as the passengers)is analyzed under the background of informationization.This study is designed to provide some references to coordinate the development of the old and new industry form.Before mobile trip applications emerge,there only exists the traditional cruising mode.The size of supply and demand remains equal at that time,and it is a kind of equilibrium on market dimension.After the introduction of e-hailing model,the behavior of both taxi and passenger has changed remarkably.Mobile trip applications have broken the original balance,so the taxi system reaches a new equilibrium soon.Instead of equilibrium on single-level in the past,the new equilibrium is a kind of multi-level network equilibrium,which is "space-market-time "equilibrium on the three dimensions respectively.Accordingly,this study analyzes the selection behavior of taxis and passengers based on the reconstructed network equilibrium:i)when the system reaches network equilibrium on spatial dimension,the travel behaviors of taxi and passenger's are analyzed;ii)when the system reaches network equilibrium on market dimension,the issue about surplus value and the social welfare in cruise mode or e-hailing model is discussed;iii)when the system reaches network equilibrium on time dimension,the dynamic process when taxi choose operation period is described.Finally,the validity of the three dimensions equilibrium model is verified by case data.The main contents and achievements of this study include:(1)Considering the spatial character,the supply and demand equilibrium model is constructed in the spatial network.Passengers would choose the e-hailing mode or cruise mode based on the general cost to hail a taxi.The vacant taxi would choose mode firstly and region afterwards to search the next passenger.The theory of intervention opportunity is applied to describe the characteristics of taxis' cumulative success rate due to the deep uncertainty in cruise mode.The use efficiency parameter is introduced in order to distinguish the two states of the vacant driving process in e-hailing mode.Based on the bilateral micro-searching behavior,Brouwer's fixed-point theorem is applied to prove that the result of this game process is to achieve the bilateral matching.So the spatial equilibrium model is established with time-constrained.This part can be used to calculate spatial characteristics of passengers and taxi when they choose mode and region.(2)The operating mechanism of the new taxi market is analyzed based on multi-mode market.By analyzing the coupling relations among the endogenous and exogenous variable,the differences of two modes are compared.It is concluded that the effect of mobile trip applications on the system is to change the vacant driving time.With the use of Cobb-Douglas production function,the surplus value of taxi and passengers is expressed in a multi-mode market.The overall social welfare is the sum of social welfare in two modes,and the information benefits are the difference.A dual level programming model is constructed.The goal of upper layer is the maximum of the social welfare or information benefits,and the goal of lower layer is the user equilibrium in the multi-mode market.The mixed genetic and simulated annealing algorithm could obtain this model.According to the allocation result,this part provides a method for determining the optimal market penetration of mobile trip applications under different objectives.(3)In view of time network,a user equilibrium model is constructed.Although the scale of taxis is a static and fixed value,but the number of taxis in operation is dependent on the dynamic change of the potential needs.A user equilibrium and stochastic user equilibrium model are established respectively under the hypothesis of condition of complete rationality or limited rationality.It is proved that when taxi reaches equilibrium in time network,no taxi can adjust the operating time to increase their own profit.The part can be used to calculate the number of taxis in operation at any time.Finally,the effectiveness of the method is verified by case data.By comparing the model output in three dimensions,this study receives the behavior characteristics of taxi and passenger in cruising mode or e-hailing mode.The results show as follow:in e-hailing mode,the rate of long distance trip is higher,the vacant driving time of taxi is shorter,the waiting time of passengers is longer,the occupancy rate is higher,and social welfare has a substantial increase.In addition,the number of taxis varies greatly at different time of a day.In general,this study shows that mobile trip applications play an important role in improving the information asymmetry and optimizing the allocation of resources,and reflects the characteristics of the network equilibrium of the taxi system under the background of information.