Mobility Equity and Economic Sustainability Using Game Theory

In this paper, we consider a multi-modal mobility system of travelers each with an individual travel budget, and propose a game-theoretic framework to assign each traveler to a "mobility service" (each one representing a different mode of transportation). We are interested in equity and sustainability, thus we maximize the worst-case revenue of the mobility system while ensuring "mobility equity," which we define it in terms of accessibility. In the proposed framework, we ensure that all travelers are truthful and voluntarily participate under informational asymmetry, and the solution respects the individual budget of each traveler. Each traveler may seek to travel using multiple services (e.g., car, bus, train, bike). The services are capacitated and can serve up to a fixed number of travelers at any instant of time. Thus, our problem falls under the category of many-to-one assignment problems, where the goal is to find the conditions that guarantee the stability of assignments. We formulate a linear program of maximizing worst-case revenue under the constraints of mobility equity, and we fully characterize the optimal solution.