Matching rank

Matching ranks allow administrators (operators) to influence the assignment of rides to vehicles, enabling specific use cases such as optimizing fleet utilization, prioritizing self-operated vehicles, and allowing preferred bookings on lines for hybrid services.

Use cases of matching rank

Matching ranks offer several practical applications, which are described below.

In-fleet occupancy optimization

By assigning different ranking values to vehicles, the matching core can prioritize filling up the main vehicles before utilizing vehicles with lower ranks. This optimizes asset usage but may affect the quality of service for passengers.

Overflow preplanning

Operators can create draft task lists with higher ranks alongside preplanned bookable task lists. The matching core initially fills the preplanned lists and, when they reach capacity or have peak times, starts matching into the draft task lists. This enables planning additional vehicles to meet the extra demand.

External operator cooperation

Service providers can assign better ranks to their own vehicles and cooperate with external operators, such as local taxi services. If the operators’ own vehicles are fully booked, the system matches rides with the more expensive external assets.

Hybrid line service

Matching ranks help in setting up hybrid products where line-based vehicles are prioritized until they are fully booked. Only after that point, the system falls back to using vehicles operated in aerial mode. This balances the utilization of different vehicle types in the fleet.

Availability of wheelchair-accessible vehicles in mixed fleets

If a product has both wheelchair accessible and non-wheelchair accessible vehicles, then for prebookings, the wheelchair accessible vehicles are “occupied” for non-wheelchair passengers.

If all wheelchair accessible vehicles are assigned a matching rank of 2, the following happens:

  • for non-wheelchair users these vehicles are only booked (or become available for booking) once the non-wheelchair accessible vehicles are fully occupied
  • for wheelchair users these vehicles are booked (or become available for booking) right away as the non-wheelchair accessible vehicles do not meet their minimum necessary booking requirements.

Configure matching rank

Matching ranks determine the order in which vehicles are selected for booking.

Vehicle A has rank 1 and vehicle B has rank 2. Ride requests are initially served by vehicle A. Only if vehicle A is unavailable (due to existing bookings or being full), a ride is booked with vehicle B.

In Control Center, matching ranks are implemented at three different levels: vehicle planning, vehicle, and operator level. The priority of matching ranks follows this order, with 1, 2, and 3 representing first, second, and third priority, respectively:

  1. Vehicle planning
  2. Vehicle
  3. Operator

However, the priority is only applied if a rank is set at each respective level.

Vehicle planning C has rank 2, whereas vehicle planning D does not have a separately set rank but is attached to operator X with rank 1. In this case, vehicle planning D is automatically assigned the rank 1 connected to operator X, and rides are primarily assigned to vehicle planning D.