Abstract:

The rapid development of ride-sourcing services has raised a lot of debates among government agencies and researchers. On the one hand, supporters claim that ride-sourcing services could offer a more reliable and economical transportation option than traditional taxi services, reducing private vehicle use, car ownership, and vehicle emissions. Despite the popularity of ride-sourcing services among the public, some cities consider suspending ride-sourcing services because of repeated safety failures and protests from taxi drivers. The impact of such a policy on the transportation system and environment is rarely studied. To fill this gap, the authors performed a stated preference survey in Chengdu, China, to investigate ride-sourcing users' alternative mode choice (AMC). The authors collected data of 435 trips from 340 respondents. The analysis results show that suspension, 53.71%, 27.36%, 10.80%, and 7.13% of ride-sourcing trips would shift to public transit, taxi, active mode (walking and cycling), and private car trips, respectively. The mixed logit modeling results show that age, gender, household income, number of cars per person, trip purpose, and transit accessibility significantly influence AMC. Results of Monte-Carlo Markov Chain simulations indicate that vehicle emissions related to ride-sourcing trips will decrease by more than 50% after the suspension. The modeling results show that the probability of choosing car-based AMCs over public transit increases with age. Other cities could use the methodology proposed by this study to evaluate the suspension policy based on local conditions.