Surge pricing impact of ride-sourcing services in Dhaka city

Abstract

Surge pricing (or dynamic pricing) has received mixed reactions over the years in case of ridesourcing services. Different opinions regarding the impact of surge pricing from the stakeholders of ride-sourcing services; especially the drivers and users of these services created a doubt whether it is beneficial or not. In this study, we have tried to explore the impact of surge pricing from both the driver and user’s perspective. Our research has been divided into three segments. At first, we wanted to analyze the actual time at which the riders of Dhaka city earn the most using Bayesian Belief Network. Secondly, the investment of a driver (waiting time and fuel cost) for ride-sourcing services has been observed through linear regression in Python. And at the end, we analyzed the responses of an online survey to understand the user characteristics of ridesourcing services in Dhaka city based on different parameters. Finally, we recommended some policies that can be implemented by the government on ride-sourcing services of Dhaka city. This study gives an idea about the actual impact of surge pricing on the ride-sourcing stakeholders of Dhaka city.