The Who, When and Why of Uber Trips in Dhaka: A Study from Users’ Perspective

Growing travel demand and technological development provoke to enhance the share of ridehailing services within urban transportation sector in the developing countries. To keep pace with this flow, Uber service has been launched in Dhaka, Bangladesh and is getting popular to city dwellers. Despite this, very little information is available regarding the user groups, their trip characteristics and service quality of ridehailing in the context of developing countries. In addition to this, effects of such service on other modes and users’ view about service are at unexplored state which is important to ensure a sustainable and equitable transport system. This study intends to investigate these issues where questionnaire survey through face-to-face interview has been conducted among the Uber users of Dhaka using simple random sampling technique. The data are analyzed engaging descriptive statistics and statistical modeling. Results show that Uber is used by comparatively wealthy younger social groups despite they claim to pay more than other alternative modes even than the specified fare by Uber that put forward the issue of equity. In accordance with user’s opinion, better accessibility, safety, comfort and existence of emergency situation influence their decision to choose Uber instead other modes like CNG, taxi services etc. Uber users of Dhaka mainly share trips with their acquaintance ones. Moreover most of the users claim the facilities on Uber car and GPS system of app need to be developed for enhancing the service quality that may further assist the decision making of integrated sustainable transport system.