Where ridehail drivers go between trips

We analyze what ridehail drivers do when searching for paid fares. We use a dataset of 5.3 million trips in San Francisco and partition each search trip into cruising, repositioning, and parking segments. We find that repositioning accounts for nearly two-thirds (63%) of the time between trips, with cruising and parking accounting for 23% and 14% respectively (these figures exclude short trips). Our regression models suggest that drivers tend to make reasonable choices between repositioning and parking, heading to high-demand locations based on the time of day. However, we also find evidence of racial disparities, supporting previous studies of both taxis and ridehailing that indicate that drivers tend to avoid neighborhoods with high proportions of residents of color.

Automated summary

This study analyzes the behavior of ridehail drivers when searching for paid fares and finds that most of their time is spent on repositioning rather than cruising or parking. The results also indicate evidence of racial disparities.