A data-driven quantitative assessment model for taxi industry: the scope of business ecosystem’s health
Eur. Transp. Res. Rev.
A data-driven quantitative assessment model for taxi industry: the scope of business ecosystem's health
Yong Zhang 0
Miner Zhong 0
Yunjian Jiang 0
0 School of Transportation, Southeast University , Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096 , China
Introduction The taxi industry has boomed over the years, both in street-hail and dispatch market. However, few studies focus on comprehensive perspectives, which make decisions such as implementing regulative or incentive policies difficult. As an economic community working in the value-oriented process, the taxi industry requires a holistic performance evaluation to determine how to adapt strategies to survive and grow. Methods This paper proposed the concept BTaxi Industry Health degree^ based on the theory of Business Ecosystem and the evaluation of its health. A four-layer criteria set is developed from aspects of robustness, productivity and sustainability, and weights are determined through Analytic Hierarchy Process. Results A synthetic evaluating model combining Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation and Artificial Neural Network is used to maintain the goal of multi-criteria decision-making. With the GPS and Taximeter dataset of taxicabs in the whole taxi industry in Wuxi, the model is applied to empirical studies. Conclusions This paper provides sensibility analysis on not only the company's order volatility, revenue growth and utilization of resources, but also influence on citizen's welfare, energy consumption and environmental pollution, which enables practical regulations and policies within taxi industry.
Taxi industry; Quantitative analysis; Business ecosystem; Health degree; Combine evaluation
1 Introduction
Taxi industry thrived in China after the reform in 1978, and it
has developed for nearly 40 years. As shown in Fig. 1, the
number of taxis in China has reached about one million for the
last ten years, and statistics in Jiangsu province play an
important role (China Statistical yearbook 2005–2015).
Although the service quality was improved and most of the
travel demand was met, there appear negative anticompetitive
practices, which would consequently impede the
development. Some taxi companies levy very high operation fees to
obtain profit, which results in poor service and driver’s
pressure [1]. In recent years, some local governments has
prohibited for-profit ridesharing from making profits, which
provides similar service with traditional taxi [2]. Thus,
performance evaluation is needed to demonstrate the existing
demand trends, operation peak, stakeholders concerns, and
potential needs [3].
Researchers identified four different segments: hailing, taxi
rank, and pre-book segment [4]. Some adds the contract
segment [5]. In most countries, taxi services are provided by
companies and individual operators. Other stakeholders
within the industry include taxi associations and regulatory
authorities. Taxi fare are regulated in most European countries, and
entry regulation were established in some countries such as
Belgium, Italy, France, etc. [6]. In some other countries,
deregulation policy showed great impact on taxi industry.
The Netherlands saw sharp increase in taxi number too, but
the service quality has declined [7]. In South Africa, the
minibus taxi industry accounts for 67.9% of the public transport
market. Although metered taxis exist, they do not provide a
big share [8]. Therefore, it is of great significance to have an
efficient and comprehensive evaluation tool to gauge the
impact of new policies.
For both well-established companies and new ventures in
taxi industry, success requires strategic thinking to make use
of resources and capabilities [9]. The term BBusiness
Ecosystem^ means a network of actors interact with each
other with an essential technology for survival and success
[10], the health of which are shown in its longevity and
growing propensity [11]. The performance indicator of business
ecosystems proposed by previous researchers are robustness,
productivity and niche creation [12]. Understanding the
existing taxi industry performance helps to create sound
models and policies for improving the quality of overall
business ecosystem. In this paper, a multi-dimensional evaluation
framework is introduced based on theories of business
ecosystem, sustainable development and industrial security.
Due to the disunity between subjective opinions and the
objective criteria, assessment of the overall performance
usually composes of four steps: proposing the criteria framework,
Fig. 2 Structure of the proposed
taxi industry evaluation model
determining the weights, analyzing the data and finally provide
suggestions [13]. GPS equipped in taxi can collect and transmit
the position and time related data to control centers in taxi
companies, which helps record trajectories, occupancy and
fares [14]. Therefore, the evaluation tool can obtain detailed
and real-time information from the GPS dataset. The proposed
evaluation tool is used w (...truncated)