Modeling Network Equilibrium in Electric Ride-Sourcing Services

This paper constructs an equilibrium model to explore the relationship between vehicle matching and charging behaviors in the electric ride-hailing market and numerically proves the existence of equilibrium solutions. The obtained equilibrium solutions can depict the system state, reveal vehicle operational characteristics, evaluate the impacts of decisions on system performance, and provide theoretical guidance for electric ride-hailing operation management. Specifically, the paper focuses on examining factors, including fleet scale, vehicle intraday choice probabilities, charging station service rates, and charging station location distributions on platform cruising time and passenger waiting time. It finds that these decision variables have significant impacts on platform operations. The paper provides a theoretical tool to describe the equilibrium state of the electric ride-hailing market and identifies influencing factors on platform efficiency, holding important references for electric ride-hailing operation management.