Understanding Ridesourcing Mobility and the Future of Electrification: A Comparative Study in Beijing

ABSTRACT

The development of mobile Internet, smartphones, and location-based services has enabled ridesourcing, which pools vehicles and drivers to provide on-demand travel services. As an alternative transportation option, ridesourcing has significant impacts on urban travel. However, the unique mobility pattern of ridesourcing and its impact on vehicle electrification have not been well studied. To address this gap, this paper presents a comparative, big-data-driven framework to characterize the ridesourcing mobility pattern, and evaluate the acceptance potential of electric vehicles for ridesourcing in comparison with other types of vehicle use. Multi-temporal resolution ridesourcing trips are extracted from raw GPS trajectories. The patterns of three urban travel (household, ridesourcing, and taxis) are extracted from GPS trajectories in Beijing, and compared. The electrification potentials of these types of travel under different charging levels are then evaluated. The results demonstrate that mobility patterns of household, ridesourcing, and taxi drivers are similar when a single trip is considered but differ significantly when total vehicle travel is considered. We show that potential acceptance of electric vehicles decreases significantly from household to ridesourcing and taxi vehicle use. These findings provide useful insights into of the role vehicle electrification can play in sustainability of urban personal transportation across a range of drivers.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban mobility
• electric vehicle
• electrification
• ridesourcing
• GPS trajectories

Additional information

Funding

This work was jointly supported by Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2019A1515011049), National Natural Science Foundation of China (71961137003), and the Basic Research Program of Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee (JCJY201803053125113883). Paolo and Carlo would like to thank Allianz, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, Brose, Cisco, Ericsson, Fraunhofer Institute, Liberty Mutual Institute, Kuwait-MIT Center for Natural Resources and the Environment, Shenzhen, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), UBER, Vitoria State Government, Volkswagen Group America, and all the members of the MIT Senseable City Lab Consortium for supporting this research. X. He and G. Keoleian acknowledge support from the Ford Motor Company.

Notes on contributors

Wei Tu

Wei Tu is an associate professor of Guandong Key Laboratory for Urban Informatics, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Spatial Smart Sensing and Services, and Research Institute of Smart Cities, and Department of Urban Informatics, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shenzhen University.

Paolo Santi

Paolo Santi is a principal research scientist of Senseable City Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a research director at the Istituto di Informatica e Telematica del CNR.

Xiaoyi He

Xiaoyi He is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS), School of Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), University of Michigan.

Tianhong Zhao

Tianhong Zhao is a Ph. D student in the Department of Urban Informatics, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shenzhen University.

Xianglong Liu

Xianglong Liu is a professor at the China Academy of Transportation Sciences and vice director of the Key Laboratory. on Advanced Public Transportation System (APTS) of MOT.

Qingquan Li

Qingquan Li is a professor of Guandong Key Laboratory for Urban Informatics, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Spatial Smart Sensing and Services. He is the president of Shenzhen University.

Timothy J. Wallington

Timothy J. Wallington is a senior technical leader in the Research and Advanced Engineering organization at Ford Motor Company.

Gregory A. Keoleian

Gregory A. Keoleian is a Peter M. Wege Endowed Professor of Sustainable Systems and director and co-founder of Center for Sustainable Systems, School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan.

Carlo Ratti

Carlo Ratti is professor of the practice and director of MIT Senseable City Laboratory.