This paper presents the study of a novel approach towards an automated taxi dispatch system that handles current bookings in a distributed fashion. Existing systems in use by taxi operators in Singapore attempt to increase customer satisfaction locally, by sequentially dispatching nearby taxis to service customers. The proposed dispatch system attempts to increase customer satisfaction more glo...

We consider a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) model for improving a taxi agent cruising decision in a congested urban city. Using real-world data provided by a large taxi company in Singapore as a guide, we derive the state transition function of the POMDP. Specifically, we model the cruising behavior of the drivers as continuous-time Markov chains. We then apply dynamic pr...

This paper proposes a new Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) service, which solves a daily problem encountered by most people living in a metropolis: how to catch a taxi in the most time efficiently manner. The architecture that supports this new Personalized Public Transit (PPT) service takes advantage of the heterogeneity of the network environment and utilizes cellular and short-range ...

As modern transportation systems become more complex, there is need for mobile applications that allow travelers to navigate efficiently in cities. In taxi transport the recent proliferation of Uber has introduced new norms including a flexible pricing scheme where journey costs can change rapidly depending on passenger demand and driver supply. To make informed choices on the most appropriate ...

BACKGROUND Taxi drivers are exposed to various risk factors such as work overload, stress, an irregular diet, and a sedentary lifestyle, which make these individuals vulnerable to many diseases. This study was designed to assess the health status of this occupational group. OBJECTIVES The objective was to explore the health status, the intention to seek health examination, and participation i...

This research is motivated by problems in urban transportation and labor mobility, where the agent flow is dynamic, non-deterministic and on a large scale. In such domains, even though the individual agents do not have an identity of their own and do not explicitly impact other agents, they have implicit interactions with other agents. While there has been much research in handling such implici...

Grey matter volume increases have been associated with expertise in a range of domains. Much less is known, however, about the broader cognitive advantages or costs associated with skills and their concomitant neuroanatomy. In this study we investigated a group of highly skilled navigators, licensed London taxi drivers. We replicated findings from previous studies by showing taxi drivers had gr...

Anomalous taxi trajectories are those chosen by a small number of drivers that are different from the regular choices of other drivers. These anomalous driving trajectories provide us an opportunity to extract driver or passenger behaviors and monitor adverse urban traffic events. Because various trajectory clustering methods have previously proven to be an effective means to analyze similariti...