Fully Dynamic Rebalancing in Dockless Bike-Sharing Systems via Deep Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Edoardo Scarpel, Alberto Pettena, Matteo Cederle, Federico Chiariotti, Marco Fabris, Gian Antonio Susto
Organizations: University of Padua, via Gradenigo 6/B, 35131, Padua, Italy
Abstract
This paper proposes a fully dynamic Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) method for rebalancing dockless bike-sharing systems, overcoming the limitations of periodic, system-wide interventions. We model the service through a graph-based simulator and cast rebalancing as a Markov decision process. A DRL agent routes a single truck in real time, executing localized pick-up, drop-off, and charging actions guided by spatiotemporal criticality scores. Experiments on real-world data show significant reductions in availability failures with a minimal fleet size, while limiting spatial inequality and mobility deserts. Our approach demonstrates the value of learning-based rebalancing for efficient and reliable shared micromobility.
Autonomous fleets enable mobility platforms to coordinate idle vehicles directly, making fleet-wide rebalancing possible. However, two obstacles limit reliable deployment: overlapping regional and local traffic patterns can hide roads that remain useful for dispatch, and mobility drift can make a trained policy unreliable. Existing spatial aggregation mixes these patterns, while updating all parameters from limited recent data is costly and can damage stable knowledge. We propose \name, a framework that connects a dispatch-oriented multi-scale graph wavelet module with Drift-Guided Layer-Selective Optimization (DGLS). The first module addresses the representation challenge by separating graph-frequency patterns and weighting each scale according to its value for demand prediction and feasible rebalancing. DGLS addresses the adaptation challenge by measuring Dispatch-weighted Spectral Drift, selecting affected layers within a resource budget, and separating short shocks from persistent changes through a drift-aware fast--slow update. Candidate validation further rejects updates that fail to improve held-out dispatch reward without worsening monitored service or safety constraints. Experiments on both real-world datasets and simluated environments demonstrate the effectiveness of \name\ in comparing with state-of-the-art methods. The source code and datasets are available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/MobiWave-40F8/.
Dispatch in three-sided marketplaces provides a natural setting for reinforcement learning from world feedback: decisions are evaluated by delayed operational outcomes such as delivery speed, courier utilization, and merchant congestion. We present a deployed reinforcement learning system at DoorDash that adapts dispatch objective weights in a large-scale food-delivery marketplace using delayed signals. Rather than replacing the combinatorial assignment optimizer, a store-level policy learned from logged marketplace data selects a discrete multiplier that shifts the dispatch optimizer's tradeoff between delivery quality and batching efficiency. This interface enables offline policy learning under noisy, delayed, and coupled feedback while preserving production feasibility constraints and operational safeguards. We train a shared value function using centralized offline data and decentralized store-level execution, with Double Q-learning targets and a conservative regularizer to reduce out-of-distribution value overestimation. In a production switchback experiment, the offline-trained policy increases batching and reduces courier-side time costs without degrading customer-facing delivery quality. Results illustrate how world feedback from a live economic and logistics system can be used to safely adapt decision policies online.
This paper focuses on dynamic origin-destination matrix estimation (DODE), a crucial calibration process necessary for the effective application of microscopic traffic simulations. The fundamental challenge of the DODE problem in microscopic simulations stems from the complex temporal dynamics and inherent uncertainty of individual vehicle dynamics. This makes it highly challenging to precisely determine which vehicle traverses which link at any given moment, resulting in intricate and often ambiguous relationships between origin-destination (OD) matrices and their contributions to resultant link flows. This phenomenon constitutes the credit assignment problem, a central challenge addressed in this study. We formulate the DODE problem as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and propose a novel framework that applies model-free deep reinforcement learning (DRL). Within our proposed framework, the agent learns an optimal policy to sequentially generate OD matrices, refining its strategy through direct interaction with the simulation environment. This approach was evaluated through a toy experiment on the Nguyen-Dupuis network and a case study utilizing an actual highway subnetwork spanning Santa Clara and San Jose. Experimental results show that the proposed method consistently improves calibration performance relative to the strongest conventional baseline, reducing link-flow MSE by 23.7% in the toy experiment and by 59.2-88.3% in the real-world case study. By reframing DODE as a sequential decision-making problem, our approach addresses the credit assignment challenge through a learned policy and provides a novel framework for calibration of microscopic traffic simulations.