To grab or not? Revealing determinants of drivers’ willingness to grab orders in on-demand ride services

Abstract

Prior research on drivers’ order response behavior in on-demand ride services has predominantly concentrated on the dispatching mode, where passengers’ orders are directly assigned to specific drivers by the platform, while little attention has been paid to the broadcasting mode, where drivers have the freedom to select an order from a pool of passenger requests broadcast by the platform. Drivers’ willingness to grab orders (WTG) is crucial to the efficiency of the broadcasting system, as low willingness to grab orders can lead to prolonged passenger waiting times and reduced passenger satisfaction levels. In this research, we explore the factors influencing drivers’ WTG on an e-hailing taxi platform in Hong Kong that adopts the broadcasting mode. Users on this platform are taxi drivers who can also pick up street-hailing orders. These taxis are referred to as e-hailing taxis. Based on an operational dataset from this platform, we use a logit model to examine the effects of trip-level and zone-level attributes on drivers’ WTG. Our results reveal a nonlinear relationship between drivers’ WTG and delivery distance; WTG initially increases with delivery distance but decreases as delivery distance exceeds a threshold. This is found to be due to drivers’ unwillingness to grab excessively long-distance orders heading to remote suburban regions, considering the difficulties in securing subsequent orders. We also find that WTG is lower for orders with longer pickup distances or originating in areas with a denser road network but increases when population density rises from origin to destination. Moreover, we find that drivers become less willing to grab orders with long delivery distances when shift periods approach. Drawing on these results, we provide suggestions for improving the efficiency of e-hailing platforms and for policymakers to enhance transport equity in suburban areas.