Competitive analysis for two-option online leasing problem under sharing economy

With the booming development of sharing economy, decision makers must consider the effect when making decisions with uncertain demands. In the leasing problem, people are faced with several leasing options. Participating in the shared leasing option can reduce the cost of the lessee, which makes it a good choice. This paper considers the online leasing option under sharing economy. By applying competitive analysis to the two-option online leasing problem, the optimal competitive ratios of the deterministic and randomized strategies with market interest rate are obtained, respectively. The theoretical results show that the strategies’ competitive performance is improved under sharing economy. Furthermore, numerical examples are performed to illustrate that considering the shared option has a significant influence on the two-option online leasing problem.