An empirical study on characteristics of supply in e-hailing markets: a clustering approach

ABSTRACT

E-hailing services have disrupted how, when, and where people travel in cities. This paper characterizes the attributes of the supply of e-hailing markets that is reflective of the labor characteristics of the drivers (contractors). Based on a clustering analysis of the observed behavior of an e-hailing company’s drivers over a month, the analysis identifies three major groups of drivers: (i) part-time drivers working flexible hours, (ii) part-time drivers working in the evenings, and (iii) full-time drivers. The clustering results of the e-hailing market supply is verified to have consistent characteristics over different days. The results of the clustering method are demonstrated to be effective for prediction of supply.

KEYWORDS:

• Mobility On-Demand
• driver behavior
• contractors
• supply prediction

Acknowledgments

This research was partially funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) DE210100602.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://outreach.didichuxing.com/research/opendata/en/.