Value of convenience for taxi trips in New York City

Abstract

The alternative public transportation options such as subway, bus, or taxis compete with each other to attract passengers. The competition depends on many factors such as travel time, reliability and convenience. Convenience is a collection of attributes affecting the attractiveness of the service including access and egress easiness, service frequency, crowding, comfort and information availability. It can be argued that the taxi preference when there is viable public transportation option is associated with the perceived convenience of taxis. The objective of this study is to evaluate the value associated with convenience of taxis in New York City by utilizing the large taxi trip data. First, the taxi trips which could be replaced by subway without any access or service availability issues (e.g., no transfers between subway lines) are extracted. Then, a multilevel modeling approach was utilized to estimate the monetary value associated with taxi convenience were estimated for different day-of-week and time-of-day periods, and areas in Manhattan. The results show that the value of convenience varies depending on the ratio of taxi travel time to subway travel time, and occasionally intersect when the ratio is close to 1. Furthermore, the corresponding value of convenience (VC) at those points (i.e., taxi travel time is equal to subway travel time) is close to $32/hr for all the zones during weekdays and weekends. Results also indicate that value of time is generally higher at peak hours during weekdays, whereas it is lower during weekend and social period at night and early morning hours.