How do fares affect the utilization of ride-hailing services: Evidence from Uber Japan's experiments

Ride-hailing has been introduced and has become popular in many major cities worldwide. The service often relies on the use of dynamic pricing, in which fares are adjusted in real time. Therefore, understanding the impact of fare on demand is necessary for the operation of ride-hailing. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of fares on demand through price elasticities using the session data of Uber taxis from Uber Japan's experiments in two cities: Nagoya and Kyoto. A mixed logit model with a flexible mixing distribution was estimated to capture the taste heterogeneity among riders, which increased the reliability of the result. The estimation results indicated that most riders were price inelastic, with an average price elasticity of approximately-0.2 to-0.1. These findings are useful for ride-hailing companies and policymakers because they provide valuable information to enable the maximization of profit or benefit to customers.