Uncovering Spatial Inequality in Taxi Services in the Context of a Subsidy War among E-Hailing Apps

Abstract

Spatial inequalities in urban public transportation are a major concern in many countries but little of this research has focused specifically on taxi services. The taxi situation has grown more complex, as traditional ride-for-hire services face growing competition from e-hailing apps like Uber in the U.S., or Didi and Kuaidi in China. In 2014, Didi and Kuaidi triggered a nationwide subsidy war, with possible effects on the spatial inequality of taxi services. Taxi trajectory data from Shenzhen collected during the subsidy war shows that this competition reduced spatial inequality in the inner city but aggravated it in the outer city. In this study, a measure of service rate to depict the quantity of taxi services is proposed to calculate a Gini coefficient for evaluating change in the spatial inequality of taxi services. The Theil index and its decomposition were used to distinguish the contribution of Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs) in the inner and the outer city and compare them to the overall spatial inequality of taxi services in Shenzhen, TAZs in the outer city had greater inequality in taxi services than the inner city. Furthermore, the primary contributor to overall inequality in taxi services was inequality within, rather than between, the inner and outer city. Moreover, the mean values for the changed service rates in the inner city were always larger than the outer city, and the inner city had a more equitable changed service rate than the outer city. These results could serve as a foundation for improving taxi services citywide.

Assessment for the Social Sustainability and Equity under the Perspective of Accessibility to Jobs

“…Several authors use both equity measures, Gini coefficient and Theil index, to calculate the equity of various systems, such as health [35,48]. The Theil index has been applied to calculate the health workforce distribution [47], taxi services [36], inequality of compulsory education [49], and disabled population [48].…”

“…Some authors consider that the Theil index has advantage over the Gini coefficient because it can explore the sub-groups relative to each other, which the Gini does not offer [28,36,48]. The Theil index can be applied to calculate both horizontal and vertical equity [28].…”

“…The Gini coefficient allows the identification of inequality [35]. The combination of Lorenz Curve and Gini coefficient is one of the tools for measuring inequity [35,36]. In the Latin American context, where location and income are commonly related, the use of the Gini index is adequate because it allows one to understand the variation of accessibility levels across places in a city, also considering socioeconomic attributes [10].…”

Exploring the Equity of Traditional and Ride-Hailing Taxi Services during Peak Hours

“…Although some studies have explored the inequity of taxi services ( 14 , 15 ), few have compared the equity of different types of service or studied how the entry of RT changed the equity of taxi services. This paper aims to fill this gap.…”

“…Since Delbosc and Currie ( 18 ) first introduced the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient to analyze the equity of public transit in Melbourne, many studies have followed suit and used these tools to analyze transportation equity ( 19 , 20 ). In relation to equity of taxi services, Su et al ( 14 ) used the Gini coefficient to quantify the changes in the equity of TT in Shenzhen during the “subsidy war” between ride-hailing apps and found that TT services were relatively inequitable. Jin et al ( 15 ) also applied the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient to evaluate Uber's effect on the equity of urban transit systems and found that TT and RT services RT were highly inequitable.…”