A joint demand modeling framework for ride-sourcing and dynamic ridesharing services: a geo-additive Markov random field based heterogeneous copula framework

Promoting sustainable transportation, ride-sourcing and dynamic ridesharing (DRS) services have transformative impacts on mobility, congestion, and emissions. As emerging mobility options, the demand for ride-sourcing and DRS services has rarely been simultaneously examined. This study contributes to filling this gap by jointly analyzing the demand for ride-sourcing and DRS services and examining how it varies across neighborhood-level built environment, transit accessibility and crime, behavioral, and sociodemographic factors. To achieve these objectives, unique geo-coded data containing millions of ride-sourcing and DRS trips in Chicago are spatially joined with up-to-date data on the built environment, transit accessibility, crime, active travel, and demographic factors. A novel Markov Random Field-based joint heterogeneous geo-additive copula framework is presented to simultaneously capture random, systematic, and spatial heterogeneity. Characterized by a Frank copula structure, the demand for ride-sourcing and DRS services exhibited a non-linear stochastic dependence pattern. With spatial heterogeneity and spillover effects, the stochastic dependence of ride-sourcing and DRS demand varied across time of day and was the strongest in compact and dense neighborhoods. Key aspects of the built environment related to urban design (pedestrian-oriented infrastructure), density, and land-use diversity were positively associated with ride-sourcing and DRS demand—suggesting that sustainable mobility goals can be achieved by continuing to invest in more walkable neighborhoods. Active travel and telecommuting were positively linked with ride-sourcing and DRS demand. Complementary and substitutive effects for transit accessibility were found. Results show that increasing transit accessibility in areas with low levels of accessibility (compared to those with high transit levels) could be more helpful in increasing the adoption of ride-sourcing and DRS services. Relative to ride-sourcing, the demand for DRS services appeared more responsive to improvements in pedestrian-infrastructure and transit accessibility. Quantification of non-linear associations with ceiling and overdose effects for the built environment, vehicle ownership, and transit accessibility provided deeper insights. The findings can help guide the development of policy interventions and investment decisions to further accelerate the adoption of mobility-on-demand systems.