Autonomous vehicles will be an integral part of ride-sharing services in the future. This setting is different from traditional ride-sharing marketplaces because of the absence of the supply side (drivers). However, it has far-reaching consequences because in addition to pricing, players now have to make decisions on how to distribute fleets across network locations and re-balance vehicles in order to serve future demand. In this paper, we explore a duopoly setting in the ride-sharing marketplace where the players have fully autonomous fleets. Each ride-service provider (rsp)'s prices depends on the prices and the supply of the other player. We formulate their decision-making problems using a game-theoretic setup where each player seeks to find the optimal prices and supplies at each node while considering the decisions of the other player. This leads to a scenario where the players' optimization problems are coupled and it is challenging to solve for the equilibrium. We characterize the types of demand functions (e.g.: linear) for which this game admits an exact potential function and can be solved efficiently. For other types of demand functions, we propose an iterative heuristic to compute the equilibrium. We conclude by providing numerical insights into how different kinds of equilibria would play out in the market when the players are asymmetric or when there are regulations in place.
翻译:自动车辆将是未来搭车服务不可分割的一部分。 这种环境与传统的搭车共享市场不同,因为没有供应方(驾驶员),因此与传统的搭车共享市场不同。然而,它具有深远的影响,因为除了定价之外,球员现在必须就如何在网络地点之间分配车队和重新平衡车辆作出决定,以满足未来需求。在本文中,我们探索搭车者拥有完全自主的机队的搭车市场中的双曲线环境。每个搭车服务提供商(rsp)的价格取决于其他玩家的价格和供应量。我们使用游戏理论设置来制定他们的决策问题,其中每个玩家在考虑其他玩家的决定的同时,寻求在每个节点找到最佳价格和供应。这导致一个局面,即玩家的优化问题相互交织,而且难以解决平衡问题。我们描述的是这种游戏的需求功能的类型(e.g.线性),因为对于这些功能来说,其潜在功能取决于其他玩家的价格和供应量。对于其他类型的需求功能,我们提议在考虑其他玩家的决定的同时,在每一个节点上找到最佳价格和供应方,同时寻找最佳的价格和供给。我们提出一个反复的超度,以便在不同的市场规则中找到不同的平衡。我们通过作出这样的选择。我们如何在选择时,从而在选择时,在不同的市场中,如何使游戏的游戏的游戏中,如何在对等的游戏中,从而使机体平调平。</s>