The risk reduction and sustainable development of shared transportation: The Chinese online car-hailing policy evaluation in the digitalization era

Abstract

Online car-hailing services (such as DiDi and Uber) are one of the typical sharing economy forms of transportation service in the digital era. Related public policies are expected to reduce the risk of online car-hailing and ensure the social sustainable development. However, the empirical evidence regarding the effect of relevant policy implementations is still scarce. This study takes an online car-hailing service in China as a research object to understand and evaluate the effect of implementing related policies. The risk related to an online car-hailing service is classified into three dimensions in this study, namely, institutional, economic and safety perspectives. The empirical results indicate that public policies have significant impacts on reducing conflicts and risk of shared transportation in China, especially the institutional risk. Furthermore, the effects of different policy factors differ for different risk types. Several insights of developing policies and regulations related to sustainable shared transportation in the digitalization era are also provided. The interaction between government authorities, private firms and citizens should be attached to great importance in policy design, which will consequently enhance the sustainable development in the transportation sector under sharing economy.