A negotiation model of individual matching and zonal-based travel behavior in carpooling

Carpooling is a sustainable and ecologically acceptable transportation mode. Individuals commonly engage in coordination and negotiation processes to find matching partners and typically modify their schedules to enable cooperation. Mutual cooperation between carpooling individuals plays an important role in executing trips. Through cooperation, participants can achieve challenging agreements effectively in a repetitive manner. This paper presents a negotiation mechanism that can match individuals for carpooling using organization and agent-based concepts. It describes a matching model and a carpooling social network. It studies several aspects of multi-zonal individual behavior to identify groups of carpooling candidates. The carpooling social network is simulated on an ongoing basis for each of the following carpooling activities: interaction, negotiation, and trip execution. The interaction process enables communication between individuals within carpooling social groups in order to activate the negotiation process. During the negotiation process, participants typically modify their schedules to support cooperation by considering their personal preferences and constraints. Negotiation leads to matching of individuals based on trip start times, driver selection, detour duration, and carpool group pickup and dropoff sequences. Trip start times are established on travel, social, financial, and schedule-related factors. The carpoolers’ pickup and dropoff sequences that are feasible for an optimal carpool group are projected using specific scoring methods. Carpooling community candidates are recognized via outcomes projected using the FEATHERS activity–based model. The framework is implemented through the Janus multi-agent system.