Comparative Analysis of Single- and Multi-Passenger Rideshare Trips

On-demand rideshare services are a promising mode of transportation in many countries across the globe, but further study is needed to ensure that the services reach their maximum potential. This study, therefore, aims to enhance the efficiency of ridesharing operations, facilitate accurate demand predictions, and assist urban professionals and city planners with infrastructure planning by exploring how riders utilize the service. To achieve these goals, we employed a data set of rideshare trips taken in Arlington, Texas, to identify, compare, and analyze trends of single- and multi-passenger rides. The analysis included differences in the distance and duration of rides taken by a single passenger and multiple passengers. After cleaning the data and eliminating all of the outliers, we developed boxplots to illustrate the distribution of ride durations and distances for each ride class and performed a t-test to assess the statistical significance of each. The findings revealed that single-passenger rides had longer distances and durations, while multi-passenger rides had longer ride durations per mile. It was also our intent to determine the association between the time of day or day of the week and the number of passengers per ride through the development of histograms and p-value matrices; however, no variability was found between these parameters. The study's findings offer critical insights into ridership trends that can benefit urban planners, transportation professionals, and most notably, rideshare providers by providing them with information that will enable them to improve the efficiency of their operations.