Ridesourcing, the sharing economy, and the future of cities

By Scarlett T. Jin, Hui Kong, Ra-Yan Wu, Daniel Z. Sui. Cities, 2018

347 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract As an integral part of the emerging sharing economy, ridesourcing refers to transportation services that connect community drivers with passengers via mobile devices and applications. The spectacular growth of ridesourcing has sparked a burgeoning literature discussing how it affects the future of cities. This paper presents a systematic review of the existing literature concerning the impact of ridesourcing on the efficiency, equity, and sustainability of urban development. Ridesourcing has a positive impact on economic efficiency. It both complements and competes with public transit, but its influence on traffic congestions near city centers is still unclear. Regarding urban equity, ridesourcing further amplifies the issue of the digital divide and raises concerns over the issues of discrimination and data privacy and security. It is also hotly contested whether prosumers (producers/consumers) are exploited by the sharing economy platforms, whether ridesourcing drivers are reasonably compensated, and how to better protect on-demand workers' rights. Even though ridesourcing has been promoting a green image, its true environmental impact has not been thoroughly investigated. According to the evidence reported in the literature so far, it is unlikely that ridesourcing will reduce private car ownership. Ridesourcing's impacts on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are uncertain based on existing research. This paper outlines the danger of conceptual confusion and the methodological issues in the existing literature. Further research is sorely needed as the future of cities is indisputably tied to the sharing economy and its impacts on shared mobility.

Subfields: Automotive Engineering, Building and Construction, Marketing

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2440340cc546861840eb661159150c6e8805725c

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Citations in the corpus

Ridesourcing systems: A framework and review (2019, background): “Jin et al. (2018a) study bilateral rating systems (BRS) on sharing economy platforms in which service providers and customers rate each other, and compare BRS with the unilateral rating systems (URS). They argue that BRS facilitates supply-demand balancing and can improve the average quality of pass”
Uber, Public Transit, and Urban Transportation Equity: A Case Study in New York City (2019, background): “Through passenger surveys, existing research suggests that ridesourcing both complements and competes with public transit (Jin et al. 2018).”
Putting the sharing economy into perspective (2017, background): “For ride-sourcing services (for example, Uber), however, there is evidence that it often substitutes for public transport and does not decrease congestion (Jin et al. 2018).”
An Overview of Shared Mobility (2018, background): “With regards to safety, ridesourcing increases trust between drivers and passengers (due to the drivers and passengers being required to register their information in advance), but insufficient driver training and uninsured or underinsured vehicles are still a problem [104].”