Understanding Ridesourcing Mobility and the Future of Electrification: A Comparative Study in Beijing

The development of mobile Internet, smartphones, and location-based services has enabled ridesourcing, which pools vehicles and drivers to provide on-demand travel services. As an alternative transportation option, ridesourcing has significant impacts on urban travel. However, the unique mobility pattern of ridesourcing and its impact on vehicle electrification have not been well studied. To address this gap, this paper presents a comparative, big-data-driven framework to characterize the ridesourcing mobility pattern, and evaluate the acceptance potential of electric vehicles for ridesourcing in comparison with other types of vehicle use. Multi-temporal resolution ridesourcing trips are extracted from raw GPS trajectories. The patterns of three urban travel (household, ridesourcing, and taxis) are extracted from GPS trajectories in Beijing, and compared. The electrification potentials of these types of travel under different charging levels are then evaluated. The results demonstrate that mobility patterns of household, ridesourcing, and taxi drivers are similar when a single trip is considered but differ significantly when total vehicle travel is considered. We show that potential acceptance of electric vehicles decreases significantly from household to ridesourcing and taxi vehicle use. These findings provide useful insights into of the role vehicle electrification can play in sustainability of urban personal transportation across a range of drivers.