Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 6561: How Do Passengers with Different Using Frequencies Choose between Traditional Taxi Service and Online Car-Hailing Service? A Case Study of Nanjing, China (Sustainability)

The rapid development of online car-hailing services (OCSs) has a huge impact on traditional taxi service (TTS) and is triggering a revolution in the taxi industry. Due to the differences in age, monthly income level, etc., travelers’ using frequencies of taxi service are different. It is necessary for online car-hailing platforms and traditional taxi companies to know the choice behavior of different types of passengers to enhance competitiveness. Based on the survey data of taxi passengers in Nanjing, China, the passengers are characterized by using frequency per week as infrequent passengers, moderately frequent passengers, and frequent passengers. The group characteristics and the differences among groups are analyzed. Further, three binary logit models are applied to analyze the taxi service choice behavior of different groups. The model results show the significant factors vary among three types of passengers. The result indicates that the impacts of safety level improvement, comfort level improvement and travel cost reduction for OCS on passengers’ choice behavior are higher than that of safety level decreasing, comfort level decreasing, and travel cost increasing. Moderately frequent passengers are more sensitive to comfort level than travel cost. The conclusions contribute to both the OCS and TTS business strategies. The results also provide insights into taxi industry management for governments.