Online taxi sharing optimization using evolutionary algorithms

This article presents the application of evolutionary algorithms for solving the problem of distributing a group of passengers travelling from the same origin to different destinations in several taxis, with the goal of minimizing the total cost of the trips. The experimental analysis compares the quality of the solutions found using the proposed algorithm versus those computed using an intuitive greedy heuristic similar to those previously proposed in the related literature to solve the problem, showing that the evolutionary algorithm is able to reach significant improvements in the trips´ total cost, outperforming the greedy heuristic in up to 41.7 % in the best case, and up to 36.4% on average. Two applications are also presented: a web-based user interface and a mobile application for devices using the iOS operating system.