Vehicle repositioning

The product feature vehicle repositioning allows operators to create repositioning tasks for a vehicle planning.

This type of task is used to reposition a vehicle during an active vehicle planning. Repositioning can be scheduled manually and also be automated in a vehicle planning.

If activated, Control Center allows operators to add repositioning tasks to existing vehicle plannings. ioki Platform can also create dismissible repositioning tasks automatically when a vehicle has enough idle time and a repositioning strategy is configured.

Use cases of this feature

Manual repositioning tasks are useful if demand on rides can be forecasted. Then, the vehicles can be placed in an optimal position to serve the requests, rising from (for example) the arrival of a certain train or a sport event.

Automated repositioning is useful for distributing a fleet to strategic locations during idle periods, which is especially of interest to services with a high number of ad hoc bookings.

Activate this feature

Roles: Super Admin

  1. Navigate to the management settings of the product.
  2. Within the Product features section, select the checkbox Vehicle repositioning.
  3. Select Save.

The admin procedure for adding manual repositioning tasks is documented in Planning in ioki Operator or Vehicle repositioning in Control Center.

Automated repositioning

The feature offers the possibility for a soft auto repositioning, which means that dismissable repositioning tasks are automatically spawned in a task list when there are idle times.

After specific events, the completion of drop off and non ride related tasks, it is checked whether it could be useful to reposition the vehicle to a waiting position.

For this, two questions have to be answered:

  • Where should a vehicle be located to?
  • When should a repositioning take place?

Repositioning strategy - define the target location

The basic idea on how to answer the first question (“Where should a vehicle be located?”) is to check the distances between the current vehicle position, available waiting positions, and the location of the upcoming task and to minimize the sum.

The distance can be defined as shortest air distance or shortest routed duration, which has to be selected as repositioning strategy on the vehicle planning.

Note that a maximum of 25 waiting positions is considered for the strategy shortest routed duration and a maximum of 100 for shortest air distance.

If no suitable target location can be determined, no repositioning task is spawned. This is the case, for example, if the vehicle is already close (< 100 m) to the determined location or if no waiting positions are defined on the product.

When should each repositioning strategy be used?

  • Use shortest air distance if you want a simple and broad heuristic. It compares straight-line distance, considers up to 100 waiting positions, and is a good fit if road conditions are predictable or the waiting positions are close together.
  • Use shortest routed duration if actual driving time matters more than geometric distance. This is usually the better choice in cities with one-way streets, rivers, bridges, or recurring congestion because it favors the fastest route on the road network.
  • A practical way to decide is to start with shortest air distance if you want wider candidate coverage and lower complexity. Switch to shortest routed duration if operators notice that vehicles are sent to places that look close on the map but take longer to reach in reality.

In a product, there are thirty places defined as waiting positions: W1, W2,…, W30. For an ongoing vehicle planning, the repositioning is triggered after the completion of a drop off task at location A and the vehicle did not move since then. The next upcoming task is a pick up task at location B.

In the first step, all of the waiting positions are ordered by their distance to the vehicle position which is determined with the help of the vehicle locator. In this case, this would be A.

  • If the repositioning strategy is set to shortest air distance all of the possible waiting positions W1 - W30 are considered. Then the sum of the air distance between A and WX and of the air distance between WX and B is built for all X = 1,…,30. The waiting position which yields the minimum value is chosen as target location.

  • If the repositioning strategy is set to shortest routed duration the first 25 waiting positions are considered and the sum of the driving time from A to WX and from WX to B is minimized. In this case, the waiting position which yields the smallest driving time is chosen as target location.

Repositioning strategy - define idle time and dismissal threshold

The second question (“When should a repositioning take place?”) can more or less be answered with “When there is enough time between two tasks”.

This is what can be defined on the product settings with the parameter Reposition vehicle on idle time threshold in the driver-related settings section by default and can be overwritten on the vehicle.

When the completion of a task triggers the check whether a repositioning task should be inserted in the vehicle planning, the vehicle’s repositioning timeframe is calculated as the difference between the calculated time of the upcoming task and the current time. An exception applies if the current time is before the start time of the vehicle planning or the upcoming task is the shift end. In this case, the planned start time is used.

If the repositioning timeframe is greater or equal than the reposition vehicle on idle time threshold, a repositioning task is spawned. Note that this only happens if there is a repositioning strategy set on the vehicle planning.

Also, if there is an active pause or a ride in progress, no repositioning task is spawned.

The second parameter which can be defined is the Dismissal threshold of vehicle repositioning. If a recalculation of a task list yields that a repositioning task is delayed more than this threshold, it is automatically dismissed.

How should the thresholds be chosen?

  • Use a lower Reposition vehicle on idle time threshold if vehicles should start repositioning quickly during short idle gaps, for example in dense on-demand areas with frequent ad hoc demand.
  • Use a higher Reposition vehicle on idle time threshold if nearby bookings should keep priority or if unnecessary empty trips should be avoided. This keeps vehicles in place unless the idle window is long enough to justify repositioning.
  • Use a lower Dismissal threshold of vehicle repositioning if passenger service and punctuality should override repositioning early. This is a good fit when small delays already make a repositioning task less useful.
  • Use a higher Dismissal threshold of vehicle repositioning if repositioning is operationally important and a moderate delay is still acceptable, for example when vehicles need to be staged for expected demand later in the shift.

Permissions: update_product, update_task_lists