On the empty miles in ridesourcing systems

Ridesourcing services provided by companies like Uber, Lyft and Didi Chuxing are playing an increasingly important role in meeting mobility needs in many metropolitan areas. Other than delivering passengers from their origin to destination, ridesourcing vehicles generate massive vacant or empty trips from the end of one passenger trip to the start of the next. These vacant trips represent unproductive use of labor supply. They also contribute additional traffic demand and may worsen the traffic conditions in urban networks. In this talk, we will discuss the factors impacting the number of empty miles in a ridesourcing system, and explore countermeasures to reduce empty miles in the system. Lastly, we introduce the modeling of ridesourcing services to estimate empty miles and capture their impacts on traffic congestion.