Distributed Mobility • Ride‑Sharing • Last‑Mile Delivery

From Distributed Taxi Ride‑Sharing to AI‑Enhanced Last‑Mile Delivery

This page documents a multi‑year research program led by Vaskar Raychoudhury and collaborators, progressing from decentralized taxi ride sharing to reinforcement‑learning‑based delivery logistics. It includes a curated timeline, research themes, collaborator network, and full publication details.

Distributed systems Metaheuristics (PSO, ACO) Asynchronous localized comms Reinforcement Learning Path‑Sharing / Multi‑hop Traffic & Hotspot modeling

Research Summary

Our work tackles the core challenges in dynamic, distributed mobility coordination. For taxis, we designed decentralized algorithms for matching and routing using localized communication and metaheuristics (PSO/ACO). We introduced causal congestion graphs and hotspot recommendation to embed real‑time traffic and demand. The program evolved into last‑mile delivery, where we formulated path‑sharing for multi‑drop deliveries and built DeliverAI, a reinforcement‑learning multi‑agent system that balances consumer satisfaction and operating cost while improving fleet utilization and reducing miles.

Timeline (Reverse Chronological)

2024

Last‑Mile: Hotspot‑Based Path‑Sharing (IEEE T‑ITS)

Multi‑objective (cost & satisfaction) • −16% distance • −15% fleet • +50% utilization

2024

DeliverAI (IJCNN)

RL‑based distributed path‑sharing • −13% distance • +12% fleet reduction • +50% utilization

2022

CARE‑Share: Cooperative & Adaptive Distributed Ride Sharing (IEEE T‑ITS)

Ant Colony Optimization • Multi‑objective Pareto optimization • Up to 79.65% success • Chicago data

2020

PSO‑based Dynamic Ride Scheduling (MASS)

Publisher–subscriber model • Particle Swarm Optimization • 91.74% non‑peak success

2020

Ant‑Taxi to Pie‑Passenger (COMSNETS)

Ant Colony Optimization • Multi‑objective • Up to 77% shared‑ride acceptance

2020

Dynamic Taxi Ride Sharing using Localized Communication (ICDCN)

Asynchronous passenger–taxi protocol • 76% share success • 97.5% peak occupancy • Chicago data

2019

Survey of Taxi Ride‑Sharing System Architectures (SMARTCOMP)

Centralized • Distributed • Hybrid • Open challenges

2018

Real‑Time Causal Congestion Graphs (PerCom Workshops)

Distributed, localized congestion detection • 65% prediction accuracy • Shanghai taxis

2018

Efficient Taxi & Passenger Searching (ITSC)

Distributed coordination (TSA) • Hotspot Recommendation (HRA) • SFO & NYC datasets

2018

Real‑Time Distributed Taxi Ride Sharing (ITSC)

TRS algorithm • 33% higher ride share • Shanghai GPS traces

Percentages and metrics are reported from the respective publications; datasets include Shanghai, San Francisco, New York City, and Chicago.

Evolution of the Work

Foundations (2018)

Decentralized taxi ride matching (TRS), taxi–passenger selection (TSA) and hotspot modeling (HRA), and causal congestion graphs for traffic‑aware dispatch.

Systematization (2019)

First comprehensive survey of ride‑sharing architectures—centralized, distributed, and hybrid—mapping open problems and design trade‑offs.

Advanced Scheduling (2020)

Localized asynchronous communication for dynamic topologies; route optimization via PSO and ACO to boost share success, occupancy, and reduce miles.

CARE‑Share Framework (2022)

Proposed cooperative and adaptive distributed ride‑sharing system using Ant Colony Optimization and Pareto‑optimal multi‑objective formulation, showing up to 79.65% success in large‑scale Chicago taxi data.

Transition to Delivery (2024)

Recognized structural parallels between ride sharing and multi‑drop deliveries. Introduced DeliverAI—an RL multi‑agent system for path‑sharing under time and service constraints. Extended with hotspot‑based routing and explicit cost–satisfaction trade‑offs, cutting fleet size and VMT while maintaining delivery SLAs.

Collaborators & Student Contributors

  • Shrawani Silwal
  • Haoxiang Yu
  • Anmol Agrawal
  • Kanika Bathla
  • Viral Kapoor
  • Aishwarya Manjunath
  • Ashman Mehra
  • Divyanshu Singh
  • Divya Saxena
  • Md. Osman Gani
  • Snehanshu Saha
  • Ajay D. Kshemkalyani
  • Sandeep Kumar
  • Archana Mathur
  • Shrinivas Kar
  • Ananya Kamath