Cost Efficiency Evaluation of an On-Chain, Decentralized Ride-Sharing Platform

Abstract

Traditional taxi providers are slowly losing their clients to online taxi providers, which are becoming increasingly popular. These companies typically provide a commercial, centralized platform in order to provide these services. The concept of centralization gives those providers significant power over their users, such as demanding and changing fees and collecting data over provided services. We aim to discuss how a decentralized approach using blockchains can solve those problems. A ride-sharing platform with the most essential functionality is implemented using a decentralized application based on smart contracts, which are, in turn, deployed on different blockchains. Various effects with respect to implementing and providing a decentralized ride-sharing service are taken in to account, especially regarding the effective cost for users. The fees of the developed platform heavily depend on which blockchain it is deployed on. Blockchains may compete in term of cost with traditional ride-sharing platforms, but choosing a suitable blockchain for the application is essential. Furthermore, the prototype shows that the time it takes for a transaction to be manifested into a block and subsequently confirmed is multiple times longer than a traditional web service response. These new problems require a new approach to implementing those requests that do not negatively affect the user experience.