Hailing a change: comparing taxi and ridehail service quality in Los Angeles

Abstract

For decades, taxis have provided for-hire vehicle service without significant competition from other modes. But in 2012, ride-hail services such as Uber and Lyft upended the taxi business model by connecting riders to drivers through smartphone applications. Since then, few studies have considered how taxis compare to their new competition or how service quality varies across the two modes. We use data from 1680 ride-hail and taxi trips taken in a Los Angeles audit study to ask: how do service qualities—including trip price, reliability, and accountability—vary across ride-hailing (Uber and Lyft) and taxis? We find that, for the same origin and destination pair, ridehail users pay 40% lower fares and wait about one-quarter of the time compared to taxis. In addition, ride-hailing nearly guaranteed a ride, while about one in five taxi riders were never picked up. We utilize semi-structured interviews of frequent taxi and ride-hail users to examine potential explanations of the stark quantitative differences observed across modes. Findings reveal that, despite technological disruption, travelers continue to prioritize the long-standing tenets of transportation services: affordability, reliability, and accountability. Ride-hailing successfully implemented technologies to deliver on these traveler priorities, while taxis have largely failed to capitalize on new technologies. Findings suggest that taxis will need to do more than lower prices or put more cars on the road if they hope to compete with ride-hailing services, and that both new and old modes should harness technology to deliver on long-standing transportation service goals.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Data collection methodology and instrument

Data collection for each ride-hail trip included the ten steps shown below:

The data collection methods were broadly similar for taxi trips. The ten data collection steps taken for each taxi trip are shown below:

Following each trip, research assistants input data into the following data collection instrument. The data collection instrument branched as dictated by trip characteristics such as if a trip was cancelled or not.

Appendix 2: Interview guides

Each interviewee was invited to participate in a follow-up interview after the completion of a 3-month fieldwork project in which each individual completed between 47 and 247 Uber, Lyft, and taxi trips. Each participant was interviewed separately. Interviews lasted for about 30 min and participants were compensated with a $25 gift card upon completion. Interviews focused on questions about experiences riding and perceptions of each Lyft, Uber, and taxis. Because we were interested in understanding what issues were important to riders, the questions were purposefully designed as open-ended and general to allow interviewees ample leeway to explore topics that they felt strongly about.

Interview guide

The below questions provided guidance in the semi-structured interviews conducted for this research.

• 1. Did you have any expectations of taxi service prior to your first ride?

• 2. How did/didn’t taxis conform to your expectations (i.e., what happened that you expected and what happened that surprised you?)

• 3. Pre-trip, what were your perceptions of:

  • a. Dispatcher interaction

  • b. Ease of finding driver at site/driver pickup

  • c. Reliability

• 4. On the ride (in the vehicle), what were your perceptions of:

  • a. Safety

  • b. Cleanliness/quality of the vehicles

  • c. Driver attitude/interactions

  • d. Route

• 5. After the trip ended, what were your perceptions of:

  • a. Payment process

  • b. Trip cost

• 6. Of the discussed topics, what element(s) of ride-hail service is/are most important to you and why?

• 7. Did your experience riding taxis change your perceptions of taxis & if so, how?

• 8. How do you anticipate using taxis/Uber/Lyft in the future?