The shared mobility services ban in South Korea: Consumer preferences and social opportunity cost

• Published in: Travel, behaviour & society behaviour & society, 2022-07, Vol.28, p.214-226
• Main Authors: Choi, Hyunhong, Park, Stephen Youngjun, Moon, HyungBin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carpooling; Market simulation; Preference heterogeneity; Professional ride hailing; Shared mobility service ban; Social opportunity cost
• ISSN: 2214-367X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tbs.2022.04.006

•Investigated consumer preferences on key attributes of car-based mobility services.•Significant social opportunity cost incurred from shared mobility services ban.•Simulated the impact of policy options that may reduce social opportunity cost.•Electrifying taxis and improving driver service quality can be a useful option.•Observed varying base cost and policy response for different demographic groups. With the advancement of information and communication technologies and the emergence of sharing economy, various shared mobility services have been introduced in many countries and some are achieving rapid growth. However, in South Korea, shared mobility services that were once introduced are now banned by laws and regulations following extreme opposition from taxi drivers and heated social conflict. This study analyzed consumer preferences for key technological and non-technological attributes that consists vehicle-based mobility services to investigate the social cost related to the ban. To be specific, this study evaluated the social opportunity cost of the ban on shared mobility services in South Korea and investigated the impact of potential options that may improve existing mobility services and minimize costs for various demographic groups. The results show that carpooling and professional ride-hailing services could assume significant amount of taxis’ current market share if they were fully available. This implies that significant social opportunity cost may be incurred from the ban as consumers are unable to use the services they want. In particular, females tended to have a higher cost than males, and the cost appeared to increase by age. The choice probability for banned mobility services (social opportunity cost) of the female older adult is the highest (73.8%) among consumer groups. Moreover, this study suggests that providing incentives to induce taxis’ electrification and strictly regulating and managing taxi drivers’ service quality could be a useful strategy for policymakers to minimize the social costs of the ban on shared mobility services.