Failover matching

Failover matching or failover or cancel ride does not have a dedicated feature flag. However, several options have to be adapted to make it work; see configure this feature.

The product feature failover matching offers a ride request to drivers in sequence. If the current driver declines the ride, ioki Platform uses the next stored matching option. If no further matching option is available, the ride is canceled with the driver rejection reason.

Behavior

When a ride is matched, ioki Platform can persist more than one matching option. The first option becomes the current ride assignment. If the connected driver rejects the task, ioki Platform:

  1. cancels the current matching option,
  2. selects the next available matching option with the next ranking,
  3. assigns the ride to that option’s vehicle and operator, and
  4. offers the ride to the connected driver for that vehicle planning.

The next option can still point to the same vehicle planning, for example when the matching differs only by fingerprint or by intermodal journey.

Use cases of this feature

If the provider operates a fleet of vehicles that also serve other purposes — for example, regular taxi shifts in addition to the ioki DRT service — this feature can help identify a driver who is available to handle the request.

Scope and limitations

  • Ride offers follow the stored matching order. Several consecutive options can belong to the same vehicle planning and therefore to the same driver.
  • Drivers can accept or decline offers only after they have started the shift. Failover matching is therefore not suitable for large prebooking thresholds.
  • If all stored matching options are exhausted, ioki Platform cancels the ride.

Configure this feature

This feature does not have a dedicated feature flag and is therefore always available. To ensure it works correctly, the following product settings are essential.

  1. The number of persisted solutions in the matching parameters has to be higher than 1. This setting determines how many precalculated matchings are saved and thus can be offered to drivers.
  2. In the driver-related settings, it is important that drivers can reject tasks is activated and waiting for driver acceptance until the system cancels is set high enough to give drivers sufficient time to decide.
  3. The threshold for prebooking automation in the settings for prebooking and ad hoc booking defines when the driver client automatically accepts ride requests. If failover matching is used for prebookings, the automation threshold should be set high enough.

Several other settings influence how this feature behaves. In particular, the way precalculated matchings are sorted plays a key role. This sorting can be affected by the configurations of related features such as intermodal journeys, multiple booking solutions, and — most importantly — the matching weights defined in the matching configuration.