01663661

Component

The appearance of small groups of on-demand transportation alternatives has exacerbated the taxi industry. Given that in the past 20 years technology has evolved and thereby taxi operation has changed, an interest on the effects it had on taxi industry has emerged. Is the taxi industry really devastated? Have taxis taken advantage of communication technologies as their competitors did? Researchers at Universidad de los Andes Bogotá, found a robust methodological way to answer these question. A before-after study was conducted based on a drivers’ survey from 2009. So, in 2017, the authors repeated the same survey to a representative sample of taxi drivers in Bogotá (Colombia), using the same sampling method. Currently 47% of drivers have a mobile device with e-hailing applications. Results have shown that taxi operation has changed between 2009 and 2017, being nowadays more efficient. On the money’s in- and outflow the authors did not find statistical significance on the gross income of drivers in Bogota, correcting for the change in value of money in time. Although these findings are valid just for Bogotá, the results provide conclusive and robust evidence of the taxi devastation fallacy.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP060 Standing Committee on Paratransit.

18-05504

English

5p

2018

Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

References

Demand responsive transportation; Taxicab companies; Technological innovations

Bogota (Colombia)

Economics; Highways; Public Transportation

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2018 Paper #18-05504

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 8 2018 11:24AM