讲座题目：Slugging: Casual Carpooling for Urban Transit

讲座人：Shiliang (John) Cui教授

主持人：王钟彬老师

讲座时间：2021年5月13日（星期四）上午10：30

讲座地点：腾讯会议

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讲座摘要：

Problem Definition: "Slugging," or casual carpooling, refers to the commuting practice of drivers picking up passengers at designated locations and offering them a free ride in order to qualify for high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes.

Academic/Practical Relevance: It is estimated that tens of thousands of daily commuters rely on slugging to go to work in major U.S. cities. As drivers save commute time and passengers ride for free, slugging can be a promising Smart Mobility solution. However, little is known about the welfare, policy, and environmental implications of slugging.  

Methodology: We develop a stylized model that captures the essence of slugging. We characterize commuters’ equilibrium behavior in the model.  

Results: We find that slugging indeed makes commuters better off. However, the widely observed free-ride tradition is socially suboptimal. As compared to the social optimum, commuters always under-slug in the free-slugging equilibrium when highway travel time is insensitive to slugging activities but may over-slug otherwise. The socially optimal outcome can be achieved by allowing pecuniary exchanges between drivers and passengers. Interestingly, passengers may be better off if they pay for a ride than if they do not under free slugging. We also find that while policy initiatives to expand highway capacity or improve public transportation always increase social welfare in the absence of slugging, they may reduce social welfare in areas where free slugging is a major commuting choice. Nevertheless, these unintended consequences would be mitigated by the introduction of pecuniary exchanges. Finally, contrary to conventional wisdom, slugging as a form of carpooling can result in more cars on the road and thus more carbon emissions.  

Managerial Implications: Our results call upon the slugging community to rethink the free-ride practice. We also caution that slugging benefits commuters possibly to the detriment of the environment.

讲座人简介：

Shiliang (John) Cui is an Associate Professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. His research area is Operations Management (OM) with a special interest in the Operations-Economics interface (e.g., studying consumer behavior under service settings and companies' product development and supply chain strategies). He has published research at top OM journals including Management Science (MS), Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM), Operations Research (OR), and Production and Operations Management (POM).