Demand Shift Model of a One-Way Car-Sharing System with Real-Time Pricing

Car sharing has become popular as a new form of transportation mode in cities. In particular, station-based one-way car sharing gives customers the option to return the vehicle to any available station. It has been gaining popularity owing to its convenience. However, under this type of car-sharing system, user demand is not constant across stations, which leads to the uneven distribution of vehicles among stations. The cost of eliminating this uneven distribution is a major problem in terms of profitability. The goal of this research is to provide a solution to the uneven distribution problem without rebalancing (managed redistribution of vehicles). The main strategy is realtime pricing, with which the user demand moves to cheaper links. This paper proposes a scheme of the real-time pricing, and develops a model describing fluctuations of user demand, not in terms of just increase or decrease, but rather in terms of demand shifts. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the method, the simulations are performed under the same setting as the actual car-sharing service by TOYOTA Corporation, Ha:mo RIDE Toyota operating in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture.