How extreme weather influences a taxi market: Spatio-temporal analysis for transport policy insights

Abstract

Extreme weather conditions, strong gust, and torrential rainfall threaten the safety of the general public and restrict people’s travel options. Most of the transportation modes are suspended due to safety reasons. Taxis are one of the only few available non-private transport modes to provide services to those who have urgent and unavoidable travel needs. This study uses global positioning system data collected from 460 Hong Kong urban taxis during nine ordinary and one tropical cyclone periods aiming to find out and explain the differences in terms of the percentage of taxis not in operation, the number of served passenger-trips, average time spent for vacant taxi drivers finding a customer, and the percentage of taxi drivers in cross-district customer-search throughout the same 48-hour duration. The finding shows an inadequate level of taxi supply and a high passenger demand during the tropical cyclone-affected period. Up to 80% of taxis were not in operation to serve the urgent and necessary trips. The average customer-search time for taxi drivers, which is anticipated inversely proportional to the demand for taxi rides, was very short (about five minutes). Policy measures are discussed and recommended to the government to improve the taxi services during extreme weather conditions.