Abstract/Description
Since the emergence of ride-hailing platforms like Uber, conventional taxi ridership has taken a severe hit. Taxi-hailing apps like Curb and Arro have allowed conventional taxis to jump on the platform economy bandwagon and offer a similar service to ride-hailing platforms. Despite the emergence of these taxi-hailing apps, strong lock-in effects and high switching costs of popular ride-hailing platforms (Uber, Lyft, etc.) restrict the ridership volumes of conventional taxis. Recently, the ride-hailing platform, Uber has started to add conventional taxis on its app under increasing pressure from Cities and conventional taxi associations. Such integrations have the potential of increasing conventional taxi ridership by providing Uber users with information about an additional travel option. In this paper, I investigate the impacts of conventional taxi integration on the Uber app in New York City and Chicago using a differences-in-differences approach. Results show that the integration of conventional taxis to the Uber app leads to a statistically significant increase in conventional taxi ridership in both cities. The paper provides insights into how Cities can regulate ridehailing platforms by tackling their strong lock-in effects and hence enable conventional taxis to compete with these platforms more efficiently.
Keywords
ride-hailing platforms, conventional taxi integration, lock-in effects, differencesin-differences analysis, urban mobility regulation, taxi ridership trends
JEL Codes
L91; L86
Location
S2 room, Adamjee building
Session Theme
Digital Transformation: Insights from Complex Economic Data
Session Type
Parallel Technical Session
Session Chair
Hadia Majid, Lahore University of Management Sciences
Session Discussant
Wali Ullah, Institute of Business Administration ; Zehra Aftab, Prince Muhammad University
Start Date
9-12-2024 2:30 PM
End Date
9-12-2024 4:30 PM
Recommended Citation
Mohsin, S. (2024). If You Can’t Beat Them Join Them: Empirical Assessment into How Integrating Conventional Taxis on the Uber App Impacts Conventional Taxi Ridership. CBER Conference. Retrieved from https://ir.iba.edu.pk/esdcber/2024/program/18
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Included in
Categorical Data Analysis Commons, Multivariate Analysis Commons, Statistical Methodology Commons
If You Can’t Beat Them Join Them: Empirical Assessment into How Integrating Conventional Taxis on the Uber App Impacts Conventional Taxi Ridership
S2 room, Adamjee building
Since the emergence of ride-hailing platforms like Uber, conventional taxi ridership has taken a severe hit. Taxi-hailing apps like Curb and Arro have allowed conventional taxis to jump on the platform economy bandwagon and offer a similar service to ride-hailing platforms. Despite the emergence of these taxi-hailing apps, strong lock-in effects and high switching costs of popular ride-hailing platforms (Uber, Lyft, etc.) restrict the ridership volumes of conventional taxis. Recently, the ride-hailing platform, Uber has started to add conventional taxis on its app under increasing pressure from Cities and conventional taxi associations. Such integrations have the potential of increasing conventional taxi ridership by providing Uber users with information about an additional travel option. In this paper, I investigate the impacts of conventional taxi integration on the Uber app in New York City and Chicago using a differences-in-differences approach. Results show that the integration of conventional taxis to the Uber app leads to a statistically significant increase in conventional taxi ridership in both cities. The paper provides insights into how Cities can regulate ridehailing platforms by tackling their strong lock-in effects and hence enable conventional taxis to compete with these platforms more efficiently.