Feasibility of Equity-driven Taxi Pricing Strategy based on Double Auction Mechanism in Bangkok Metropolitan Region, Thailand

TL;DR

This study evaluates a double auction taxi fare scheme in Bangkok that aims to improve equity and accessibility, showing it increases successful taxi assignments and spatial coverage despite some trade-offs in emissions and revenue.

Contribution

It introduces a novel double auction pricing mechanism tailored to Bangkok's taxi system, promoting transportation equity and spatial accessibility.

Findings

Increases taxi assignment success rate by up to 30%.

Expands pickups in low-profit, distant areas by 10-15%.

Raises total emissions by 10%, but reduces local emissions by up to 40%.

Abstract

Passenger rejection by taxi drivers impacts the travel behaviour in many cities and suburban areas, often leaving those potential customers in non-popular zones stranded without access to taxis. To overcome this problem, many practices have been implemented, such as penalties to drivers, bans, and new pricing strategies. This paper presents a double auction taxi fare scheme, which gives both passengers and taxi drivers to influence the price, coupled with a clustering method to discourage strategic service rejection in the case study of Bangkok Metropolitan Region, Thailand, which has detailed data availability and uneven taxi journey distributions. The double auction mechanism is tailored to 2019 taxi trips, service rejection complaints, and local travel behaviour to boost transportation equity. To benchmark the performance of the new double auction scheme, a bespoke agent-based model of the taxi service in Bangkok Metropolitan Region at different rejection rates of 0%-20% was created. On one hand, the current rejection behaviour was modelled, and on the other, the double auction pricing strategy was applied. The results indicate that the double auction strategy generates a spatially distributed accessibility and leads to a higher taxi assignment success rate by up to 30%. The double auction scheme increases pickups from locations that are 20-40 km from central Bangkok by 10-15%, despite being areas of low profit. Due to the changing taxi travel landscape and longer taxi journeys, the total air pollutant emissions from the taxis increase by 10% while decreasing local emissions within central areas of Bangkok by upto 40%. Using a 5 Baht average surcharge, the total revenue drops by 20%. The results show that an equity-driven pricing strategy as an implementation of transport policy would be beneficial.