Human in the Loop Automation : Ride-Hailing With Remote (Tele-) Drivers
Tele-driving refers to a novel concept where drivers can remotely operate vehicles (without being physically in the vehicle). By putting the human back "in the loop," tele-driving has emerged recently as a more viable alternative to fully automated vehicles, with ride-hailing (and other on-demand transportation-enabled services) being an important application. Because remote drivers can be operated as a shared resource (any driver can be assigned to any customer regardless of trip origin or destination), tele-driving has the potential to reduce the severity of the spatial mismatch between vehicle supply and customer demand that is often experienced in these services and the number of drivers needed. In this paper, we quantify the potential gains that could be realized by switching from in-person drivers to remote drivers. We compare a traditional ride-hailing system with one with tele-drivers in three regimes defined by vehicle capacity. We find that: (1) if customers are impatient, a system with appropriately selected driver capacity may significantly improve the service level (the fraction of demand that is served), or significantly reduce the number of drivers while maintaining a similar service level; and (2) if customers are patient, a system with remote drivers may stabilize an otherwise unstable system with in-vehicle drivers or significantly reduce the number of drivers while maintaining a similar service level (as measured by the expected delay experienced by customers)
Year of publication: |
2022
|
---|---|
Authors: | Benjaafar, Saif ; Wang, Zicheng ; Yang, Xiaotang |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
Saved in:
freely available
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