Empirical evidence for taxi customer-search model

R. M. N. T. Sirisoma, S. C. Wong, W. H. K. Lam, D. Wang, H. Yang, P. Zhang
2010 Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers : Transport  
A mutinomial logit model of urban taxi services has been developed for the study of the operational characteristics of the taxi industry, in which it is hypothesised that the customer-searching behaviour of vacant taxis follows a multinomial logit choice model. Although the model is commonly used, little empirical evidence exists to validate the choice mechanism and determine the set of important factors that affect the choice. In the present study, a stated preference survey of 400 taxi
more » ... was conducted to analyse the customer-searching behaviour of vacant taxis. The results explain how the considered parameters of waiting time, journey time, travel distance and toll affect the driver behaviour when searching for customers. In addition, market segmentation analysis was carried out to study the effects of driver demographics and operational characteristics on the searching behaviour. The parameters that were considered in this section of the study were the age of the driver, taxi ownership, driver experience and marital status. NOTATION c sr generalised travel time via the shortest route from zone s to zone r LR log likelihood ratio L R log likelihood for the base model calibrated for the combined dataset with all market segments L U sum of the log likelihoods of the sub-models calibrated for different market segments P r=s probability that a vacant taxi originating in zone s will meet a customer in zone r U i utility function of a taxi driver in searching for the next customer V i deterministic component of the utility w r waiting (search) time in zone r x i
doi:10.1680/tran.2010.163.4.203 fatcat:myytehuzzngqrcwgvpjanejx5a