Master Thesis MSTR-2023-86

BibliographySchmid, Lasse: Incentives and Management of a Decentralised Platform for Ride-Pooling.
University of Stuttgart, Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Information Technology, Master Thesis No. 86 (2023).
99 pages, english.
Abstract

Assuming that autonomous vehicles become a reality in the next few years, there are studies that predict an uprise in traffic and, therefore, congestion. To prevent this, ride-pooling is suggested as a way to use vehicles more efficiently. However, a platform orchestrating ride-pooling would traditionally generate an oligopoly or even a monopoly. A possible solution to prevent those forces in the market is a decentralised platform. Therein, this Thesis focuses on the business model, especially on the incentives used while characterising the market with the consideration of stakeholders and existing literature. By conducting a structured literature review and methodically analysing stakeholders, incentives are defined according to the House Framework. Including a concept for governance to ensure the operation long-term. This thesis shows that such a platform can be designed, generating the maximum total revenue through a Vickrey auction and, therefore, the optimum for users and ride-providers. All the steps in the process have a Nash equilibrium, so there is an incentive to comply with the system. Additionally, a reputation system holds people accountable for misbehaving. It determines ratings via a weighted average with decay. Even though the platform can operate more cost-efficiently than current vendors on the market.

Department(s)University of Stuttgart, Institute of Architecture of Application Systems
Superviser(s)Aiello, Prof. Marco; Pesl, Robin
Entry dateFebruary 20, 2024
   Publ. Institute   Publ. Computer Science