A Learning-Based Hybrid Decision Framework for Matching Systems with User Departure Detection

TL;DR

This paper introduces a learning-based hybrid decision framework for matching systems that adaptively balances immediate and delayed matching to optimize efficiency and reduce congestion, based on user departure data.

Contribution

It presents a novel adaptive framework that dynamically combines immediate and delayed matching using real-time departure data, improving flexibility and performance in matching markets.

Findings

Reduces waiting times and congestion significantly.

Maintains high matching efficiency with limited sacrifice.

Adapts between greedy and patient policies effectively.

Abstract

In matching markets such as kidney exchanges and freight exchanges, delayed matching has been shown to improve overall market efficiency. The benefits of delay are highly sensitive to participants' sojourn times and departure behavior, and delaying matches can impose significant costs, including longer waiting times and increased market congestion. These competing effects make fixed matching policies inherently inflexible in dynamic environments. We propose a learning-based Hybrid framework that adaptively combines immediate and delayed matching. The framework continuously collects data on user departures over time, estimates the underlying departure distribution via regression, and determines whether to delay matching in the subsequent period based on a decision threshold that governs the system's tolerance for matching efficiency loss. The proposed framework can substantially reduce waiting times and congestion while sacrificing only a limited amount of matching efficiency. By dynamically adjusting its matching strategy, the Hybrid framework enables system performance to flexibly interpolate between purely greedy and purely patient policies, offering a robust and adaptive alternative to static matching mechanisms.