Optimal Fleet Size and Fare in a Car Sharing Market
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Chen, Yi-Ju
Abstract
In consideration of social equity and sustainability, promotion of public transport has been the ultimate goal for countries facing the challenges of congestion, air pollution, and energy consumption caused by high ownership and usage of motorized vehicles. In addition to promoting public transport systems, car sharing has been recognized as an innovative model in the past decade. Previous researches on car sharing have focused primarily on users’ economy and social characteristics, usage habits, and travel behaviors as well as operator costs. Although some studies have analyzed the potential market for car sharing, their methodology was based on information from surveys and questionnaires. It has also been observed that most carsharing operators choose vehicles with conventional gasoline fuel, although increasing numbers of new operators use hybrid or electric vehicles for energy efficiency and emission reduction. This research develops an analytic optimization model and applies it to solve the problem of optimal fleet size and fare for the carsharing market with either electric or conventional vehicles. Objectives of maximum profit and social welfare subject to a break-even constraint are considered in the model. In the numerical analysis, Taipei City is used as the case study for verifying the applicability of the models. Numerical results have shown in conventional vehicle that the optimal fare is 223 NTD/hour and the optimal fleet is 697 with maximum profit objective while the optimal usage fare is 194 NTD/hour and the optimal fleet is 2,037 with an assumption of average five hour usage per month in Taipei’s carsharing market. It has also shown that there will be no market with the full price of EVs while the optimal usage fare is 221 NTD/hour and the optimal fleet is 747 for the maximum profit objective if there is a 34% cost subsidy for EVs based on the current policy. For the maximum social welfare objetive subject to break-even constraint, the optimal usage fare is 191 NTD/hour and the optimal fleet is 2,324 . The models developed and numerical analyses will be beneficial for planning of a car sharing maket.
Subjects
Car sharing
Electric vehicle
Pricing
Fleet size
Optimization model
Type
thesis
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