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Carpooling promises benefits to the environment and consumers alike, but research has shown that there are multiple practical challenges to realizing these benefits. One possible solution is the addition of meeting points (hubs) in the design of carpooling systems. Recent studies indicate that introducing hubs increases both carpool participation and system-wide savings. Little to no research has been conducted, however, to understand the origin of these savings, determine their utility in different carpooling models, or detailing how hubs should be introduced (i.e. as a mandate or option). Additionally, we know nothing about the impact of hubs on self-organizing carpools (the primary means of creating carpooling systems). To address these gaps, we studied the impact of meeting points on two types of carpooling models (pick-up/drop-off and to/from), using two solution paradigms (centralized and self-organized), with hubs that were either mandated or optional. Our findings show that adding the option of meeting hubs improves system-wide savings from carpooling. These findings, along with our introduction of a new efficient carpool enumeration technique, have important practical implications for the design of modern carpooling systems in the development of more effective and sustainable uses of transportation resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing carpool optimization techniques based on the centralized approach serve policy-makers' goals, but neglect the realities of participants. Moreover, absent strict enforcement, participants often ignore centralized solutions and maximize their own savings. We present a new heuristic, formulated and tested on real-world, and simulated car pooling problem instances, that mimics a decentralized carpool self-organization process. Our findings reveal system-wide savings similar to centralized models, and a potential strategy for improving carpool utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]