Care to Share? Using GPS Fleet Data to Assess Taxi Sharing

GPS technology has been extensively used to optimize operation of taxi systems since the first appearance of commercial GPS devices. Owing to this, data sets generated by taxi fleets are amongst the first and most representative examples of massive GPS data that have been systematically collected. The analysis of these data sets has recently generated a rich literature aimed at, among other things, identifying optimal taxi driver strategies, predicting taxi demand or location of vacant taxis, etc. This chapter focuses on what is a new, exciting field of investigation of GPS taxi data analysis, namely, evaluating the impact of a shared taxi system on the urban environment. After introducing the notion of (taxi) ride sharing, the chapter presents the relevant literature, describing in greater details a methodological approach called "shareability network" that allows formal characterization of taxi sharing opportunities in an urban environment.