Dynamic ridesharing

Ridesharing, which offers empty seats in a car to other passengers, is an efficient way of transportation. In this way, the utilization of seats can be improved and the number of cars used can be reduced. Ridesharing has the potential to solve the problems of congestion, pollution, high travel cost, and energy. The development of internet, smart phone, GPS allows dynamic matchings of travel requests with available cars through real-time travel planning systems. However, matching requests and cars under certain constrains in large scale remains challenging. In this paper, we formally address the problem of dynamic ridesharing and introduce the solution framework of filter and refine, under which we summarize existing state-of-the-art works. Finally, we point out possible research directions and problems needed to be solved.