Impact of COVID-19 outbreak and vaccination on ride-sharing services: a social media analysis

ABSTRACT

The global COVID-19 pandemic produced several changes in nearly every aspect of our lives. Ride-sharing platforms such as Uber and Lyft must adapt their strategies and aims to stay afloat. The analysis in this study is based on 216,120 tweets in the U.S. between January 1, 2019, and December 30, 2021, about Uber. It includes four separate analyses: Popularity and Usage Analytics, Sentimental Analytics, Voice Analytics, and Topic Mining Analytics. The result shows that usage and popularity of Uber on Twitter negatively affect Covid and death cases. In contrast, vaccination helps mitigate the shock of Covid. Additionally, ’ ‘Uber’s policy and business model was beneficial in improving its positive image during the pandemic; On the early breakout of Covid in the U.S. Uber had a jump on the positive sentiment, mainly because Uber provided safer service than public transportation.

KEYWORDS:

• Ride-sharing Services
• Covid-19 pandemic
• Transportation
• Social media analysis
• Urban management
• and planning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.