In the past decade, ride-hailing has emerged into the spotlight with significant growth in on-demand transport services. Ride-hailing service allows passengers to call a taxi using ride-hailing system apps like Grab, Lyft, Uber, and Ola. It offers door-to-door services and serves as an easy & comfortable means of transportation.
You’ll be surprised to know that, a study by Accenture has revealed that around 2/3rd of US car owners who ride-hail would like to sell their vehicles within the next 10 years. Also, Allied Market Research says that the global ride-hailing service market is projected to reach $126,521.2 million, with a CAGR of 16.5% by 2025.
With the increasing growth in the ride-hailing business, the demand for drivers is also increasing day by day. Online platforms like uber, and Ola, have their drivers’ apps for onboarding the maximum number of drivers on their platform. This means that drivers have become the backbone of ride-hailing platforms.
With that being said, how the drivers behave plays a massive role for these businesses. In this article, we will discuss understanding the drivers’ behavior in the ride-hailing business.
Why does a driver join a ride-hailing business?
To understand the drivers’ behavior, we first need to understand why the drivers join the ride-hailing business in the first place. Well, if it could be described in one sentence, it’s because “They want to be happy”. The ‘ride-hailing business’, popularly known as the ‘ride-hailing business’ is getting prevalent among taxi drivers.
The Ride-Hailing business has given wings to the profession of hail driving. Drivers find it very convenient to join this business as it is flexible, independent, standardized, and easy to start with.
Drivers can start their careers from scratch with this business. All they need to do is own or rent a vehicle, register themselves on these platforms, and start taking up the rides.
The drivers stay motivated because of the freedom they have and the fact that they can start their work any time of the day and can work for any number of hours they want.
Read More: Ways to motivate your drivers to stay online and accept more rides
Factors affecting drivers’ behavior in the ride-hailing business
Rating system
In online ride-hailing platforms, generally, there are rating options for both drivers as well as riders. This can have both a positive and negative impact on the driver’s behavior.
If the drivers are rated good, they will feel happy to serve the platform they are working with. But, if they are being rated indifferently, they might not want to work. So, the rating system matters a lot in the ride-hailing business.
Look at this tweet by Keith Phipps about his amazing experience, this driver would be so happy working for a ride-hailing business!
Income Prospect
Income is the most important aspect for any working professional. They provide their efforts and skills to the company and expect a good amount of income from it.
Similar is with the drivers, the income they earn will affect their behavior towards driving, riders, and the business. However, as it’s a ride-hailing platform, the number of rides they take will amount to their income. So, here drivers are in control of their income.
Ride Acceptance
Generally, the drivers receive requests for rides from the riders with minimal information, like the location of the rider and the pickup point. Once they accept the ride, they can cancel it but with a fine to pay. So, accepting a ride becomes a very important decision for the drivers.
Read More: Why your driver may cancel your ride
Working Shift
In what shift the drivers decide to work, profoundly depends on whether they have other jobs, i.e. whether they are full-time or part-time drivers, but also on their likings and dislikes.
The night owls choose to sleep through the morning and start working later in the noon; the ones who don’t like spending time with stoned passengers dodge evenings and nights, and some drivers don’t prefer evenings due to their desire to spend this time doing social happenings.
Ride Destination
Driving the rider to the destination (drop location) involves a standardized process. During the transit how the trip goes, how the rider behaves and the level of difficulty in finding the drop point affects the driver’s behavior in making decisions in the future regarding the trip. That is why sometimes when the driver accepts the ride and then calls the rider to ask about the drop location.
Read More: Attract More Riders and Drivers to Grow Your Taxi Network
Surge Pricing
Certain areas in every city have a surge pricing time or place. Surge pricing means the increase of price due to prime time or heavy demand time. The drivers tend to take up the rides from these areas generally at night because the price surges the most at that time.
There are also the options of ride scheduling for riders, the early morning goers use this option. For drivers, there is a surge in price and specific demand in the early morning.
Why do we need to understand drivers’ behavior in ride-hailing?
So, now that it’s clear why the riders join the ride-hailing business and what factors affect their decisions, we need to know the reason why understanding a driver’s behavior is important in ride-hailing. Drivers are the major support system of the ride-hailing business. so their behavior matters the most for the business to grow, that is why we need to understand their behavior.
The industry of ride-hailing heavily depends on some set of people, which includes
- Riders
- Drivers
- The platform
- Policy
- The general public
With the growth of the ride-hailing business, the number of such platforms is increasing and the general public (users) is getting used to booking cars through these platforms.
Also, with the policy being made fairer for all sets of people, it has become more important to manage relationships with drivers. It’s important to keep the drivers happy and motivated and make sure that they understand and what the company has to offer them.
Furthermore, the ride-hailing drivers are generally the owners of their vehicles, so they are ultimately the people on whom the company is dependent and any decisions that the drivers take can surely affect the business.
Read More: Challenges faced by driver associations all over the world
In addition to that, we also need to understand the drivers’ behavior in ride-hailing for:
Safety
In case of any driver taking up a ride, the safety of riders depends solely on the driver’s hand. This safety can be in terms of ride, behavior, and route. Other than the rider, the driver’s safety is also in his hands, it includes regular servicing, concentration while driving, and following the traffic rules.
Quality of Service
The company is fully dependent on drivers, for its goodwill in the market. The quality service by the driver will equal the quality service by the company. The quality service includes cleanliness, cordial behavior with the rider, maintaining standards of policy, and being on time.
Insights to Improve Ride Assignment
With the driver being the main protagonist in the ride-hailing business and the service being app-based, the company can track the bookings. And the data generated from it can help get important insights for improvements in ride assignments.
For example, if a driver has received more five-star reviews in the ABC area that means that the riders in the ABC area are more satisfied with him. So, if we know the drivers’ behavior in the ride-hailing business, next time this driver will be receiving more orders of booking from this area.
To maintain the rider-driver relationship
The rider and driver dynamic is what gets the business to earn and profit from their ride-hailing businesses. How the drivers behave and make decisions can determine the future of the rider-driver relationship.
As discussed earlier, nowadays ride-hailing platforms provide the option of rating for both the rider as well as the driver. This means that riders can rate drivers and drivers can rate the riders. The drivers and riders who have given good ratings to each other are most likely to match again on the same route. This can develop a long-term relationship between the duo.
Conclusion
It is established that drivers are the backbone and the representatives of the ride-hailing industry. There is no ride-hailing without driver partners. They are the ones who render your experience from the digital to the physical, determined to make every ride safe, secure, and seamless for you.
Moreover, it is also evident that the ride-hailing business is in popular demand due to its significant growth in the previous decade. There have been so many potential businesses that desire to be a part of this industry but are unaware of the taxi app development or do not know how to choose the right taxi dispatch software to develop the required application.
Yelowsoft has created the right technology that can provide hassle-free and highly advanced ride-hailing solutions for your taxi business.
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