Abstract
Driven by the emission peak and carbon neutrality targets, traditional cruising taxis are also under pressure to reduce emissions, and reducing taxi vacant time is an effective way to reduce emissions. This paper aims to examine the influence mechanism of built environment characteristics on vacant time of taxi trips from the supply-side perspective. To do so, the study uses a one week of taxi trajectory data of 2019 provided by a taxi company in Chongqing, a megacity in China. We take the divided square grid cell as the study units, calculate the taxi vacant time of 168 (7 × 24) hourly slots for each grid, and then calculate the built environment indicators of the grids with Point of Interest (POI) and vector road network data. A generalized additive model (GAM) based on panel data is constructed to investigate the influence mechanism of built environment on taxi vacant time. The results show that the time-varying trend of taxi vacant time is opposite to the time-varying trend of taxi trips and is similar to taxi trips in spatial distribution with significant spatial dependence. Taxi vacant time is negatively correlated with taxi trips. POI mixture, the number of enterprises, governmental agencies, and shopping services are negatively correlated with vacant time, while the number of sports and leisure services, hotel services, healthcare services, financial and insurance services, and living services are positively correlated with vacant time. An interesting finding is that metro stations significantly increase the vacant taxi time in the region. Average traffic flow speed, road density, the number of bus stops, catering services, residence communities, and motor vehicle services show strong nonlinear relationships with taxi vacant time, and their influence effects are alternately positive and negative. The study provides useful insights for understanding mechanisms of the role of built environment on taxi vacant time and has important implications for driver searching strategy improvement, taxi management measures development, spatial and temporal scheduling of taxi capacity resources, and urban transportation facilities layout planning.
Highlights
Taxis are an essential component of the urban integrated transportation system, which play a valuable role in complementing urban transportation because of time and space flexibility during operation
Vacant taxis contribute to pollution, energy waste, and road traffic congestion and reduce the effectiveness of taxi service [1, 2]. e high percentage of taxi vacant time or vacant miles indicates that the demand for taxis is not well matched with the supply, which leads to increased passenger waiting time and reduces the level of taxi service and passenger satisfaction [3, 4]
Moran’s I of the grid vacant time was calculated as 0.328, and the significance test showed that the p value
Summary
Taxis are an essential component of the urban integrated transportation system, which play a valuable role in complementing urban transportation because of time and space flexibility during operation. Because taxi passengers are random, taxis will be unoccupied a certain percentage of the time during their service. E high percentage of taxi vacant time or vacant miles indicates that the demand for taxis is not well matched with the supply, which leads to increased passenger waiting time and reduces the level of taxi service and passenger satisfaction [3, 4]. Taxi vacant time is one of the important indicators of taxi operation level, which is influenced by multiple factors [5]. When the demand and supply are relatively stable, taxi operation level largely depends on the operation capacity of drivers, which relies heavily on the empirical knowledge and real-time perception of the external environment [6]. When a taxi is in service, its external environment is divided into two types: static environment and dynamic
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