Location Optimization for Urban Taxi Stands Based on Taxi GPS Trajectory Big Data

A taxi stand can effectively regulate the behavior of taxi picking up passengers, reduce empty-run rate, and provide a convenient and orderly waiting environment for the public. However, the unreasonable setting of the existing taxi stands in most cities leads to an extremely low utilization rate and a waste of public space resources. This paper presents a novel three-stage strategy to address the taxi stands location problem (TSLP) incrementally. First, taxi demands hotspots are mined from a massive taxi Global Positioning System (GPS) data with GIS platform, and the optimal area for taxi stands siting in the following stages is determined. Then, the spatial interaction between taxi demands and taxi stands is explored to generate demand subsections and stand candidates along both the sides of the road. At last, a taxi stand location model (TSLM) is developed to minimize the total cost, which contains the access cost of passengers and the construction cost of taxi stands. The genetic algorithm-based procedure is adopted for TSLM optimization. A case study conducted in China verifies the effectiveness of the location strategy and investigate the impact of the maximum acceptable distance for passengers on TSLP. The experimental results describe the number and layout of taxi stand under a different demand coverage, which indicates that the proposed approach is beneficial to provide scientific reference for the municipal department in taxi stand site decisions and make a tradeoff between the interests of planners and users.