Potential of Shared Taxi Services in Rural Areas – A Case Study

Due to modern communication and information technology, shared taxi services are on the rise. While most research and practical projects focus on services operating in densely populated areas, the advantages of individual, flexible and shared transportation services in sparsely populated urban areas have not been well explored yet. Using a constraint programming formulation, this work investigates request management policies to evaluate the economic potential of shared taxi services. Computational experiments simulate such services under various effective degrees of dynamism and demonstrate the impact of pre-bookings on their efficiency and service quality in rural areas.