IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/transp/v41y2014i5p1099-1117.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Not just a taxi”? For-profit ridesharing, driver strategies, and VMT

Author

Listed:
  • Donald Anderson

Abstract

The spread of GPS-based location services using smartphone applications has led to the rapid growth of new startups offering smartphone-enabled dispatch service for taxicabs, limousines, and ridesharing vehicles. This change in communicative technology has been accompanied by the creation of new categories of car service, particularly as drivers of limousines and private vehicles use the apps to provide on-demand service of a kind previously reserved for taxicabs. One of the most controversial new models of car service is for-profit ridesharing, which combines the for-profit model of taxi service with the overall traffic reduction goals of ridesharing. A preliminary attempt is here made at understanding how for-profit ridesharing compares to traditional taxicab and ridesharing models. Ethnographic interviews are drawn on to illustrate the range of motivations and strategies used by for-profit ridesharing drivers in San Francisco, California as they make use of the service. A range of driver strategies is identified, ranging from incidental, to part-time, to full-time driving. This makes possible a provisional account of the potential ecological impacts of the spread of this model of car service, based on the concept of taxicab efficiency, conceived as the ratio of shared versus unshared miles driven. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Donald Anderson, 2014. "“Not just a taxi”? For-profit ridesharing, driver strategies, and VMT," Transportation, Springer, vol. 41(5), pages 1099-1117, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:transp:v:41:y:2014:i:5:p:1099-1117
    DOI: 10.1007/s11116-014-9531-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11116-014-9531-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11116-014-9531-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vincent P. Crawford & Juanjuan Meng, 2011. "New York City Cab Drivers' Labor Supply Revisited: Reference-Dependent Preferences with Rational-Expectations Targets for Hours and Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1912-1932, August.
    2. Daniel Flores-Guri, 2005. "Local Exclusive Cruising Regulation and Efficiency in Taxicab Markets," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 39(2), pages 155-166, May.
    3. Carlton Basmajian, 2010. "“Turn on the radio, bust out a song”: the experience of driving to work," Transportation, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 59-84, January.
    4. Luciano Gamberini & Anna Spagnolli & Andrea Miotto & Eva Ferrari & Nicola Corradi & Sarah Furlan, 2013. "Passengers’ activities during short trips on the London Underground," Transportation, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 251-268, February.
    5. Arnott, Richard, 1996. "Taxi Travel Should Be Subsidized," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 316-333, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anderson, Donald N., 2018. "“Not Just a Taxi”? For-Profit Ridesharing, Driver Strategies, and VMT," SocArXiv yw6nx, Center for Open Science.
    2. Yang, Hai & Fung, C.S. & Wong, K.I. & Wong, S.C., 2010. "Nonlinear pricing of taxi services," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 337-348, June.
    3. Seymour, David Thomas, 2018. "Free to cruise: Designing a market for tradable taxicab rights," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 1-20.
    4. Zha, Liteng & Yin, Yafeng & Du, Yuchuan, 2018. "Surge pricing and labor supply in the ride-sourcing market," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 117(PB), pages 708-722.
    5. Adrian T. Moore & Ted Balaker, 2006. "Do Economists Reach a Conclusion on Taxi Deregulation?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 3(1), pages 109-132, January.
    6. Doran, Kirk, 2014. "Are long-term wage elasticities of labor supply more negative than short-term ones?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 208-210.
    7. Jean-Michel Benkert, 2015. "Bilateral trade with loss-averse agents," ECON - Working Papers 188, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jul 2022.
    8. Karle, Heiko & Schumacher, Heiner & Vølund, Rune, 2023. "Consumer loss aversion and scale-dependent psychological switching costs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 214-237.
    9. Barbora Mazúrová & Ján Kollár & Gabriela Nedelová, 2021. "Travel Mode of Commuting in Context of Subjective Well-Being—Experience from Slovakia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, March.
    10. Wang, Wei & Miao, Wei & Liu, Yongdong & Deng, Yiting & Cao, Yunfei, 2022. "The impact of COVID-19 on the ride-sharing industry and its recovery: Causal evidence from China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 128-141.
    11. Wong, K.I. & Wong, S.C. & Yang, Hai & Wu, J.H., 2008. "Modeling urban taxi services with multiple user classes and vehicle modes," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 985-1007, December.
    12. Xu, Zhengtian & Yin, Yafeng & Zha, Liteng, 2017. "Optimal parking provision for ride-sourcing services," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 559-578.
    13. A. Banerji & Neha Gupta, 2011. "Do Auction Bids Betray Expectations-Based Reference Dependent Preferences? A Test, Experimental Evidence, And Estimates Of Loss Aversion," Working papers 206, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    14. Berger, Thor & Chen, Chinchih & Frey, Carl Benedikt, 2018. "Drivers of disruption? Estimating the Uber effect," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 197-210.
    15. Hai Yang & Yan Lau & Sze Wong & Hong Lo, 2000. "A macroscopic taxi model for passenger demand, taxi utilization and level of services," Transportation, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 317-340, June.
    16. Andreas Leibbrandt, 2016. "Behavioral Constraints on Pricing: Experimental Evidence on Price Discrimination and Customer Antagonism," CESifo Working Paper Series 6214, CESifo.
    17. Fabien Leurent, 2019. "Microeconomics of a taxi service in a ring-shaped city," Working Papers hal-02047269, HAL.
    18. Steffen Andersen & Cristian Badarinza & Lu Liu & Julie Marx & Tarun Ramadorai, 2022. "Reference Dependence in the Housing Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(10), pages 3398-3440, October.
    19. Vignon, Daniel & Yin, Yafeng & Ke, Jintao, 2023. "Regulating the ride-hailing market in the age of uberization," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    20. Çetin, Tamer & Yasin Eryigit, Kadir, 2013. "The economic effects of government regulation: Evidence from the New York taxicab market," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 169-177.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:transp:v:41:y:2014:i:5:p:1099-1117. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.