Nonlinear pricing of taxi services

This paper examines the effects of nonlinear fare structures in taxi markets using an extended taxi model with an explicit consideration of perceived profitability. The expected profit, defined as the profit per unit time (inclusive of both occupied and vacant taxi times), that a taxi driver expects to receive from picking up a customer in a particular zone or location, has great impact on the taxi driver’s choice of location in the search for customers. The fare structure directly governs the profitability of taxi rides of different distances originating from different locations. With these explicit considerations, the extended model is intended to look into the market effects of adopting a nonlinear fare structure with declining incremental charges. The proposed nonlinear fare structure could help restore a level-playing field for taxi operators whose businesses have been affected by some taxi drivers who resort to practices such as offering fare discounts or accepting requests for discounted fares from passengers for long-haul trips. Analysis of sensitivity of social welfare and profit gain as well as taxi/customer wait/search times is conducted with respect to the parameters in the nonlinear fare structure for the Hong Kong taxi market, and Pareto-improving nonlinear fare amendments are identified that neither disadvantage any customer nor reduce the taxi operators’ profits.     

A macroscopic taxi model for passenger demand,taxi utilization and level of services

In most urban areas taxi services are subject to various types of regulation such as entry restriction and price control. However, effective intervention depends on generating and using suitable information on the demand-supply equilibrium of the taxi market. This paper develops a simultaneous equation system of passenger demand, taxi utilization and level of services based on a taxi service situation found in the urban area of Hong Kong over the last ten years. A set of variables is introduced including number of licensed taxis, taxi fare, disposable income, occupied taxi journey time as exogenous variables and daily taxi passenger demand, passenger waiting time, taxi availability, taxi utilization and average taxi waiting time as endogenous variables. These variables are coupled together through a system of nonlinear simultaneous equations whose parameters are estimated from survey data. The simultaneous equation system can be used to obtain useful regulatory information to assist with the decisions concerning the restriction over the number of taxi licenses and the fixing of the taxi fare structure as well as a range of service quality control. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Modeling urban taxi services in road networks: Progress,problem and prospect

Traditionally, many economists have examined the models and economics of urban taxi services under various types of regulation such as entry restriction and price control in an aggregate way. Only recently have we modeled urban taxi services in a network context. A realistic method has been proposed to describe vacant and occupied taxi movements in a road network and taxi drivers' search behavior for customers. A few extensions have been made to deal with demand elasticity and congestion effects together with development of efficient solution algorithms. Calibration and validation of the network taxi service models have been conducted towards their practical applications. This paper presents an overview of the research that has been carried out by the authors to develop network equilibrium models and solution algorithms for urban taxi services, and offers perspectives for future researches.     

Modeling the bilateral micro‐searching behavior for urban taxi services using the absorbing markov chain approach

This paper develops a mathematical model that is based on the absorbing Markov chain approach to describe taxi movements, taking into account the stochastic searching processes of taxis in a network. The local searching behavior of taxis is specified by a logit form, and the O‐D demand of passengers is estimated as a logit model with a choice of taxi meeting point. The relationship between customer and taxi waiting times is modeled by a double‐ended queuing system. The problem is solved with a set of non‐linear equations, and some interesting results are presented. The research provides a novel and potentially useful formulation for describing the urban taxi services in a network.     

Solution methods for the taxi pooling problem

In Taiwan, taxi pooling is currently performed by some taxi companies using a trial-and-error experience-based method, which is neither effective nor efficient. There is, however, little in the literature on effective models and solution methods for solving the taxi pooling problem. Thus, in this study we employ network flow techniques and a mathematical programming method to develop a taxi pooling solution method. This method is composed of three models. First, a fleet routing/scheduling model is constructed to produce fleet/passenger routes and schedules. A solution algorithm, based on Lagrangian relaxation, a sub-gradient method and a heuristic to find the upper bound of the solution, is proposed to solve the fleet routing/scheduling model. Then, two single taxi-passenger matching models are constructed with the goals of decreasing number of passenger transfers and matching all passengers and taxis. These two taxi-passenger matching models are directly solved using a mathematical programming solver. For comparison with the solution method, we also develop another heuristic by modifying a heuristic recently proposed for solving a one-to-many taxi pooling problem. The performance of the solution method and the additional heuristic are evaluated by carrying out a case study using real data and suitable assumptions. The test results show that these two solution methods could be useful in practice.     

Analysis of taxi demand and supply in New York City: implications of recent taxi regulations

This paper investigates temporal and weather-related variation in taxi trips in New York City. A taxi trip data-set with 147 million records covering 10 months of activity is used. It is shown that there are substantial variations in ridership, taxi supply, trip distance, and pickup frequency for different time periods and weather conditions. These variations, in turn, cause variations in driver revenues which is one of the main measures of taxi supply–demand equilibrium. The findings are then used to discuss the anticipated impacts of two recently enacted taxi regulation changes: the first fare increase since 2006 and the E-Hail pilot program which allows taxi hailing with smart phone applications. The fare increase is estimated to cause varying levels of revenue increase for different time periods. E-Hail apps are not expected to offer considerable improvements at all times, but rather when both adequate taxi supply and demand occur simultaneously.     

Optimizing charging station locations for urban taxi providers

Recently, electric vehicles are gaining importance which helps to reduce dependency on oil, increases energy efficiency of transportation, reduces carbon emissions and noise, and avoids tail pipe emissions. Because of short daily driving distances, high mileage, and intermediate waiting time, fossil-fuelled taxi vehicles are ideal candidates for being replaced by battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Moreover, taxi BEVs would increase visibility of electric mobility and therefore encourage others to purchase an electric vehicle. Prior to replacing conventional taxis with BEVs, a suitable charging infrastructure has to be established. This infrastructure consists of a sufficiently dense network of charging stations taking into account the lower driving ranges of BEVs.In this case study we propose a decision support system for placing charging stations in order to satisfy the charging demand of electric taxi vehicles. Operational taxi data from about 800 vehicles is used to identify and estimate the charging demand for electric taxis based on frequent origins and destinations of trips. Next, a variant of the maximal covering location problem is formulated and solved to satisfy as much charging demand as possible with a limited number of charging stations. Already existing fast charging locations are considered in the optimization problem. In this work, we focus on finding regions in which charging stations should be placed rather than exact locations. The exact location within an area is identified in a post-optimization phase (e.g., by authorities), where environmental conditions are considered, e.g., the capacity of the power network, availability of space, and legal issues.Our approach is implemented in the city of Vienna, Austria, in the course of an applied research project that has been conducted in 2014. Local authorities, power network operators, representatives of taxi driver guilds as well as a radio taxi provider participated in the project and identified exact locations for charging stations based on our decision support system.     

Reassessing the commuting penalty for immigrants: new evidence from Spain

Transportation - This article examines the differences in commuting length between native and immigrant employees in Spain, a relevant issue since immigrants' longer commuting times may, among...     

Travel to work and household responsibility: new evidence

A persistent empirical finding in the research on travel patterns is that women tend to engage in shorter work commutes than men. Research evaluating the degree to which this gender differential in commuting may be explained by the division of labor in the household has produced decidedly mixed findings. This paper presents a critical review of the methods and results of recent research on the gender differential in commuting along with the associated implications for the household responsibility hypothesis (HRH). While all of the articles reviewed are informative and unique, not all conclusions are well supported. The paper then tests the HRH using the 1990 NPTS travel data. The new evidence confirms that women continue to exhibit shorter commute times and distances than men and provides support for the HRH. The paper concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations for further research.     

The return on investment for taxi companies transitioning to electric vehicles

We study whether taxi companies can simultaneously save petroleum and money by transitioning to electric vehicles. We propose a process to compute the return on investment of transitioning a taxi corporation’s fleet to electric vehicles. We use Bayesian data analysis to infer the revenue changes associated with the transition. We do not make any assumptions about the vehicles’ mobility patterns; instead, we use a time-series of GPS coordinates of the company’s existing petroleum-based vehicles to derive our conclusions. As a case study, we apply our process to a major taxi corporation, Yellow Cab San Francisco (YCSF). Using current prices, we find that transitioning their fleet to battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles is profitable for the company. Furthermore, given that gasoline prices in San Francisco are only 5.4 % higher than the rest of the United States, but electricity prices are 75 % higher; taxi companies with similar practices and mobility patterns in other cities are likely to profit more than YCSF by transitioning to electric vehicles.     

Airport taxi service regulation: An analysis of an exclusive contract

Taxi service at a number of major airports is supplied by one taxi company under an exclusive contract with the airport operating authority. Conventional wisdom suggests that airport taxi service produced under exclusive contract is socially inefficient. This was found to be true at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. In this paper we analyze the exclusive airport taxi service at Honolulu International Airport as a case study. At Honolulu International Airport, the terms of the exclusive airport taxi service contract are far less restrictive than those at Dallas/Fort Worth. Our analysis indicates that exclusive airport service can provide high quality service, reasonable prices and revenues to finance airport service. We conclude that is not the exclusivity, but rather the terms of the contract and the circumstances specific to each market that determines which system is best for a particular place.     

郑州百名的哥要求"单飞"

郑州客运管理处负责人表示,出租车实行个体经营,不利于统一管理和临督。然而,据了解,2003年,郑州大众出租年公司300多名的哥"单飞"成功。目前,他们拥有自己的经营权,直接挂靠客运管理处,只缴纳100元的管理费,比其他的哥少缴纳70元。     

出租车行业:中小城市如何做大做强?--温州鹿城区出租车行业面临的问题与对策

温州市区的出租车行业,自1987年1月29日古楼街道小客车出租服务社的13辆"菲亚特"率先投入营运至今,已得到飞跃发展,现拥有出租车企业43家,有"富康"、"捷达"、"奇瑞"、"桑塔纳"等车型的出租车3329辆.市区的出租车企业,除4家属国有、集体的以外,其余都是私营或股份制企业.在从小到大的发展过程中,这些企业曾经付出了许多心血,得到了车主和社会的认可,为温州市的建设做出了自己的贡献.但是,我国加入世贸组织,使温州市鹿城区的出租车行业面临严峻的挑战,他们对此准备如何应对呢?     

Accounting for inertia in modal choices: some new evidence using a RP/SP dataset

Inertia is related with effect that experiences in previous periods may have on the current choice. In particular, it has to do with the tendency to stick with the past choice even when another alternative becomes more appealing. As new situations force individuals to rethink about their choices new preferences may be formed. Thus a learning process begins that relaxes the effect of inertia in the current choice. In this paper we use a mixed dataset of revealed preference (RP)-stated preference (SP) to study the effect of inertia between RP and SP observations and to study if the inertia effect is stable along the SP experiments. Inertia has been studied more extensively with panel datasets, but few investigations have used RP/SP datasets. In this paper we extend previous work in several ways. We test and compare several ways of measuring inertia, including measures that have been proposed for both short and long RP panel datasets. We also explore new measures of inertia to test for the effect of “learning” (in the sense of acquiring experience or getting more familiar with) along the SP experiment and we disentangle this effect from the pure inertia effect. A mixed logit model is used that allows us to account for both systematic and random taste variations in the inertia effect and for correlations among RP and SP observations. Finally we explore the relation between the utility specification (especially in the SP dataset) and the role of inertia in explaining current choices.     

Hailing a change: comparing taxi and ridehail service quality in Los Angeles

Transportation - For decades, taxis have provided for-hire vehicle service without significant competition from other modes. But in 2012, ride-hail services such as Uber and Lyft upended the taxi...     

New potential for multimodal connection: exploring the relationship between taxi and transit in New York City (NYC)

Transportation - Taxi trips have been somewhat neglected in transportation mobility and multimodal connection studies. The socio-demographic characteristics of taxi riders are often not fully...     

Aggregate expenditure elasticity for transport and communication in Australia

For the purpose of estimating Engel elasticity, one needs to find the best functional form among various alternatives. In this paper, a new function, which is called the double semi-log Engel function turns out to be the best functional form for the transport and communication items in Australia on the basis of the distance function (D²) criterion, and the non-nested hypothesis testing procedure. This function is then used to estimate total expenditure elasticity, and the percentage change in consumer demand due to changes in total expenditure and total expenditure inequalities; using the 1975–76 Household Expenditure Survey data. The results of the analyses demonstrate that transport and communication is a necessary item in Australia on the basis of two criteria, viz., its elasticity is not significantly greater than unity, and the percentage change in demand increases with a decrease of the total expenditure inequality [emphasised by Iyengar (I960)]. Policy implication of the analyses has also been discussed.