A Zone-Based Tradable Credit Scheme for Rebalancing Ride-Hailing to Improve Demand-Supply Allocation Efficiency and Mitigate Accessibility Imbalances

Abstract

Urban multimodal transport systems suffer from inefficiencies arising from spatial and modal misalignment between demand and supply. Public transit (PT) is typically dense in city centers but sparse in peripheral areas, creating a spatial imbalance in access to mobility services. Ride-hailing (RH) can help address this imbalance by providing flexible coverage and first-and-last-mile connectivity to the PT network. Yet profit incentives concentrate RH supply in transit-rich urban centers, where RH diverts demand for short trips from high-capacity PT and consumes scarce road space, while underserving transit-poor peripheries. This misallocation reduces efficient use of road and transit resources and exacerbates accessibility imbalances. To address this, we propose a supplyside, spatially differentiated Tradable Credit Scheme. By assigning higher credit requirements to central zones, the scheme shifts relative profitability, incentivizing RH relocation to peripheries. This supply-side intervention reshapes passenger assignment across modes by altering RH service availability and wait times, reducing inefficient substitution away from PT in transit-rich areas, and improving PT access in peripheral areas through better RH–PT integration. We develop an integrated modeling framework linking the credit market with endogenous multimodal demand and transport operations. We evaluate system performance at a long-term stationary equilibrium in which, given the prevailing credit price, assignments, and travel times, no driver can increase earnings by changing participation or license levels. Numerical results show that the proposed policy weakens RH substitution away from PT, expands RH availability in suburban areas, improves first- and last-mile connectivity, and helps mitigate spatial imbalances in PT-based accessibility across urban and suburban areas.