Ride-Sourcing and Ride-Hailing Services: How Can We Make Them Safer and More Equitable?
There are many benefits of these services relative to traditional taxicab services, but problems still exist including racial discrimination and poor accessibility for vulnerable populations.
We live in an era where smartphones seem to provide everything at our finger tips. So many of us want everything in our lives to be fast and convenient. For example, while we enjoy conveniences that come with owning a car, we also like being unencumbered by the worries and financial burdens that go along with having a car. With taxi services overwhelmed by requests from potential passengers, ride-sourcing and ride-hailing (RH) services offer us a way to achieve these desires.
In what follows, your Ride On writers will review three academic articles which look at the pros and cons of these services relative to taxi services, resulting in some recommendations for improvement in terms of accessibility, equity, and safety. Also note that while we use the terms “ride-sourcing” and “ride-hailing” interchangably, they are not exactly the same because the latter term involves taking a person or a group of people to a single destination, while ride-sourcing involves carpooling.
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