Quantifying the impact of weather on ride-hailing ridership: Evidence from Haikou, China

Abstract

Existing studies have demonstrated that weather significantly affects public transit and active travel, but few studies quantify the impact of weather on ride-hailing ridership. Compared with other travel modes, the supply of ride-hailing can be flexibly adjusted following weather changes, thereby reducing the difficulty for users to hailing cars and improving vehicle utilization. This study quantifies the impact of weather on ride-hailing ridership in Haikou, China. Our main results include: (1) An increase of 1 mm in precipitation raises ride-hailing ridership by 0.39%, and an increase of 1 m/s in wind speed reduces ridership by 1.04%; (2) Wind speed and rainfall have stronger impacts on weekends than on weekdays. The increase of 1 mm in precipitation raises the ridership by 0.21% and 0.59% on weekdays and weekends, respectively; (3) The impact of weather on ride-hailing ridership is significant in the daytime while insignificant in the nighttime; (4) The effect of wind strengthens with travel distance, while the impacts of rainfall and air pollution diminish with travel distance; and (5) Trips starting from urban areas are more vulnerable to weather than those from suburban areas.