Analysis of Spatial Equity in Taxi Services: A Case Study of New York City*

Many people criticize the unequal distribution of traditional taxis (TT) service and believe the advent of e-hailing taxis (ET) can bring equity to the public. However, this have not been rigorously studied by existing research. This paper aims to explore the spatial equity of taxi services and how the advent of ET affects the equity. Trip data of TT and ET in New York City in 2010 and 2017 was used for a case study. The spatial autoregressive models were used to estimate the spatial dependence of taxi service pick-ups, which could indicate the existence of inequality in taxi services. It was found that the spatial dependence of TT in 2010 was the highest and the spatial dependence of ET was the lowest in 2017 with other contributing factors like population and employment controlled. When ET appeared, the spatial dependence of the total taxis (TT+ET) trips in 2017 decreased compared with that in 2010, suggesting that the advent of ET increased the spatial equity of taxi services.

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