  Vehicle (bike or car) sharing represents an emerging transportation scheme
which may comprise an important link in the green mobility chain of smart city
environments. This chapter offers a comprehensive review of algorithmic
approaches for the design and management of vehicle sharing systems. Our focus
is on one-way vehicle sharing systems (wherein customers are allowed to pick-up
a vehicle at any location and return it to any other station) which best suits
typical urban journey requirements. Along this line, we present methods dealing
with the so-called asymmetric demand-offer problem (i.e. the unbalanced offer
and demand of vehicles) typically experienced in one-way sharing systems which
severely affects their economic viability as it implies that considerable human
(and financial) resources should be engaged in relocating vehicles to satisfy
customer demand. The chapter covers all planning aspects that affect the
effectiveness and viability of vehicle sharing systems: the actual system
design (e.g. number and location of vehicle station facilities, vehicle fleet
size, vehicles distribution among stations); customer incentivisation schemes
to motivate customer-based distribution of bicycles/cars (such schemes offer
meaningful incentives to users so as to leave their vehicle to a station
different to that originally intended and satisfy future user demand);
cost-effective solutions to schedule operator-based repositioning of
bicycles/cars (by employees explicitly enrolled in vehicle relocation) based on
the current and future (predicted) demand patterns (operator-based and
customer-based relocation may be thought as complementary methods to achieve
the intended distribution of vehicles among stations).
