Assessing the Experience of Providers and Users of Transportation Network Company Ridesharing Services
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2019-05-01
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Edition:Final Report (09/20/2017 - 5/31/2019)
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Abstract:This report studies driver and traveler attitudes towards UberPool and Lyft Shared, Uber and Lyft’s services that take advantage of data connectivity and analytics to match travelers on the fly so they can share rides. We conducted a survey of over 300 drivers and over 1100 Uber/Lyft travelers in the cities where shared service is offered. We included travelers who use the services regularly, those who have tried the services but have given them up, and those who use Uber/Lyft but do not use the shared services. We also mined Twitter and examined over 2000 tweets about the services. We find that drivers tend to be dissatisfied with providing these services, citing what they perceive to be unfair compensation, the difficulty of the work (such as picking up and dropping off numerous passengers), and problems dealing with passengers (for example when passengers do not get along with each other or become frustrated with the travel time). Passenger attitudes are more mixed, with passengers appreciating the cost savings but citing problems such as long travel times and unreliability. Some users and non-users, particularly women, also express concerns about safety. The social experience and helping the environment do not appear to be major attractions for riding, although we find that sharing humorous anecdotes about other passengers has become something of a meme on Twitter. We find that a substantial number of respondents will not try the services or have given up use of them, and thus we offer numerous suggestions for improving shared service, including increasing driver compensation; changing the pricing system by increasing the cost of non-shared rides and reducing and restructuring the cost of shared rides; and improving the social experience, for example by allowing passengers to rate each other, more aggressively banning bad passengers, allowing women the option of sharing with only women, and using Facebook to inform passengers when they have things in common.
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