Journal of Korean Society of Transportation ISSN:1229-1366(Print) 2234-4217(Online) 대한교통학회지

The recent advancement of ICT enables platform-based taxi-hailing services with the help of smartphone applications, allowing the implementation of taxi-pooling service during some time periods and in some areas as a pilot program. This program is expected to mitigate to an extent the taxi service shortage problem caused by the mismatch between taxi demands and supplies. Under this background, it is required to scrutinize citizens’ level of acceptance and their demand of the taxi-pooling services, which may guide decisions on expanding and sustaining the services. This study aims to investigate taxi passengers’ acceptance of the taxi-pooling services by employing a questionnaire-based survey targeting 1,000 Seoul citizens. The survey revealed that 16 percent of the respondents were positive about traditional taxi-pooling services and that the positive responses increased to 30.7 percent when the traditional service is changed to a platform-based one that can provide information about taxi driver and co-passengers. Ordered probit models were also developed to identify factors that affect user’s acceptance to the taxi-pooling services. The models illustrated that respondents’ background such as age, income, modes of commuting and satisfaction with taxi service are important factors. In particular, the respondents with a higher level of satisfaction with taxi services tend to more willingly accept the taxi-pooling services. A classification tree analysis was also applied to identify who are more acceptable to the taxi-pooling services when the platform-based service (under which drivers and passengers’ information are given) is introduced. It showed that 40s and 60s users who use private car, taxi and other (walk, bike etc) as modes of commuting tend to positively change their attitude toward the taxi-pooling services after the introduction of platform-based one.