A Fairness-Oriented Reinforcement Learning Approach for the Operation and Control of Shared Micromobility Services

As Machine Learning systems become increasingly popular across diverse application domains, including those with direct human implications, the imperative of equity and algorithmic fairness has risen to prominence in the Artificial Intelligence community. On the other hand, in the context of Shared Micromobility Systems, the exploration of fairness-oriented approaches remains limited. Addressing this gap, we introduce a pioneering investigation into the balance between performance optimization and algorithmic fairness in the operation and control of Shared Micromobility Services. Our study leverages the Q-Learning algorithm in Reinforcement Learning, benefiting from its convergence guarantees to ensure the robustness of our proposed approach. Notably, our methodology stands out for its ability to achieve equitable outcomes, as measured by the Gini index, across different station categories--central, peripheral, and remote. Through strategic rebalancing of vehicle distribution, our approach aims to maximize operator performance while simultaneously upholding fairness principles for users. In addition to theoretical insights, we substantiate our findings with a case study or simulation based on synthetic data, validating the efficacy of our approach. This paper underscores the critical importance of fairness considerations in shaping control strategies for Shared Micromobility Services, offering a pragmatic framework for enhancing equity in urban transportation systems.