Speaker: Vincent Jost, researcher at CNRS, G-SCOP lab, Grenoble, France
Abstract: The number of cities equipped with Vehicle Sharing Systems (vélib’, car2go, …) is increasing rapidly. VSS are viewed as a promising way to reduce traffic and air pollution. Despite the growing number of VSS, they are still poorly understood and often suffer from congestion problems (absence of a vehicle or of a parking spot at the destination). It is hard for system operators to design management rules, because they lack extensive experiments, due to the complexity and novelty of these systems.
I will discuss ways of investigating VSS with queuing networks models, using simulations as well as mathematical approximations: fluid and mean field limits. Real systems are also investigated statistically in order to both understand their dynamic and to choose relevant parameters and values for these parameters in our models. Statistical challenges, including optimization issues, on which we are still working will be mentioned.