Abstract
In China, the traditional taxi industry is conforming to the trend of the times, with taxi drivers working with e-hailing applications. This reform is of great significance, not only for the taxi industry, but also for the transportation industry, cities, and society as a whole. Our goal was to analyze the changes in driving behavior since taxi drivers joined e-hailing platforms. Therefore, this paper mined taxi trajectory data from Shanghai and compared the data of May 2015 with those of May 2017 to represent the before-app stage and the full-use stage, respectively. By extracting two-trip events (i.e., vacant trip and occupied trip) and two-spot events (i.e., pick-up spot and drop-off spot), taxi driving behavior changes were analyzed temporally, spatially, and efficiently. The results reveal that e-hailing applications mine more long-distance rides and new pick-up locations for drivers. Moreover, driver initiative have increased at night since using e-hailing applications. Furthermore, mobile payment facilities save time that would otherwise be taken sorting out change. Although e-hailing apps can help citizens get taxis faster, from the driver’s perspective, the apps do not reduce their cruising time. In general, e-hailing software reduces the unoccupied ratio of taxis and improves the operating ratio. Ultimately, new driving behaviors can increase the driver’s revenue. This work is meaningful for the formulation of reasonable traffic laws and for urban traffic decision-making.
Highlights
Ride-sourcing services, as an essential part of mobile sharing, has brought about significant changes to the way people travel
A distance within 3 km was defined as a short-distance occupied trip (SDOT), while a distance further than 10 km was defined as a long-distance occupied trip (LDOT)
This paper focused on the spatiotemporal changes in driving behavior and the influences on taxi drivers after working with e-hailing applications
Summary
Ride-sourcing services, as an essential part of mobile sharing, has brought about significant changes to the way people travel. The apps can predict the price of the ride and the waiting time to decrease travel uncertainty [5], especially for people with mixed modes of travel and who need to be somewhere on time These apps can enhance the safety of travel, as they supply path planning and real-time location data to make the passenger feel more secure [6]. On 1 June, 2015, the Shanghai Taxi Information Service Platform (STISP, hereafter referred to as the “platform”) was officially launched, with joint participation from the Shanghai Transportation Commission, the four major taxi companies in Shanghai, and the “DiDi” (DiDi is a Chinese transportation network company that offers e-hailing ride services, holding approximately 99% of the market as of September 2015) This is the first time that a car-hailing app has officially cooperated with the authorities, marking the opening of doors between local traffic control departments and China’s largest internet taxi company. The findings of this paper are summarized in the last section
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