Making dynamic ride-sharing work: The impact of driver and rider flexibility

• The performance of a ride-sharing system increases with participant flexibility.
• Driver and rider departure time flexibility is necessary.
• Driver detour flexibility is critical.
• The required flexibility to be matched can vary significantly for participants.

We conduct an extensive computational study to quantify the impact of different types of participants’ flexibility on the performance of a single-driver, single-rider ride-sharing system. Our results consistently show that small increases in flexibility, e.g., in terms of desired departure time or maximum detour time, can significantly increase the expected matching rate, especially when the number of trip announcements in the system is small. The insights gained from our study can provide the basis for the design of information campaigns and incentives schemes aimed at increasing the performance and success of ride-sharing systems.