1st International Conference on Transportation Research 2020 (ICTR 2020)

18 –20 April 2020

BRRL, Mirpur, Bangladesh
https://rhd.portal.gov.bd/ & www.brrlbd.com

A Behavioral Choice Model of Motorcycle Ridesourcing in Dhaka City

Rakibur Rahman1, Shajalal Sarker1, Md. Jahidul Islam1, Md. Hishamur Rahman1*

1
Department of civil Engineering, International University Of Business Agriculture and Technology,
Dhaka, Bangladesh, <hishamur@iubat.edu>
*Corresponding Author

ABSTRACT
Ridesourcing is becoming a popular mode of transportation in many countries around the
world, including developing countries like Bangladesh. Previous studies have mostly focused
on the behavioral choice models of car ridesourcing, while the factors affecting the
motorcycle ridesourcing remains unexplored. To better understand the influence of socio-
economic and demographic features on the frequency of using motorcycle ridesourcing, this
research is conducted based on the data collected through questionnaire at key locations in
Dhaka city, the capital of Bangladesh. An Ordered Probit Model is developed to find the
correlation between motorcycle ridesourcing and various socio-economic factors. Model
estimation shows that the user of motorcycle ridesourcing service tends to be male,
employed, high-income earners and without vehicle ownership. The model result also shows
that people with lower educational status and elderly citizens are less likely to use motorcycle
ridesourcing. The developed ordered probit model identifies factors that are useful to the
ridesourcing companies to understand their market penetration of motorcycle ridesourcing
and can be adopted by the transport planners as a part of their travel demand models.

Keywords: Motorcycle ridesourcing; ordered probit model; socio-economic factors;

demographic factors; travel behavior

INTRODUCTION
Ridesourcing is an on-demand travel arrangement where a driver makes a car or bike
available for public hire for passengers. Ridesourcing is becoming a widely popular mode of
the transportation system. One of the reasons ridesourcing is drawing more customers than
any other conventional transportation is the difference in waiting times, where ride-sourcing
waiting times are significantly shorter and convenient than a present-day transportation
system (Rayle et al. 2016). Along with cars, motorcycle ride-sourcing is also steadily gaining
popularity around the world. A recent study (Medeiros et al. 2018) showed that 24% of
commuter train users are highly interested to use motorcycle ridesourcing in Jakarta.
Dhaka is the eighth most densely populated cities around the world with 18.2 million
populations (Irani, 2017). To meet the enormous demand for transportation in this megacity,
a large number of the vehicle are running on the road every day where it creates huge traffic
congestion. Due to traffic congestion, a substantial amount of working hours is being wasted
on the street which has an adverse impact on the country's economy and productivity.
According to (Rayle et al. 2016), ride-sourcing can be a potential substitution for
conventional transportation services in a city. This scenario is also evident from mega city

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Dhaka, Bangladesh. At present, Uber, Pathao, Shohoj, Obhai, and PickMe are operating in
Dhaka city. IDLC Business review (2018) demonstrates that in 2016 solely 10,000 people
have registered with one of the DRT (Demand Responsive Transport) services including car-,
motorcycle-, and CNG-hailing services. In 2018 this registration number has increased
rapidly and around 500,000 people have registered in this DRT services.
According to World Bank data (Quaium, 2017), average car speed in Dhaka is 7 km per hour,
nearly walking speed, whereas motorcycle speed is 16 km per hour. Since motorcycle can
navigate even through narrow alleys and congested traffic lanes, motorcycle ridesourcing has
become a popular choice of the travellers for beating the traffic. Furthermore, using
smartphone apps it is possible to call on a motorcycle to the door of the house. In this
manner, the App-based motorcycle ride-sourcing services are helping to alleviate the
congestion problem and waiting time to some extent by increasing the mobility and
accessibility.
To date, a number of studies have been conducted to determine the impact of socio-economic
and demographic factors on car ridesourcing services. Dias et al. (2017) developed a
behavioral choice model for ride-sourcing and car ridesharing services. They developed a
bivariate ordered probit model, which showed that users of these services are young, well-
educated, higher income, working persons and living in higher-density areas. Alemi et al.
(2018) investigated the reasons behind the adoption and frequency of use of car ride-hailing
services and their impacts on the use of other travel modes. He used binary logistic models to
identify the factors affecting the use of ridesourcing services. He found that people who are
young and well educated are more inclined to using ridesourcing services. Another
interesting finding was that car owners are also likely to use on-demand ride services. Mitra
et al. (2019) found the factors affecting the use of car ride-hailing services among the older
adults in the United States by utilizing a Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) model.
They found that elderly males (aged 65 to 74) who are living alone, urban dwellers and
highly educated people are more likely to be adopters of car ride-hailing services. The results
also suggested that smartphone ownership plays an important role in adopting ride-hailing
services.

Overall, there is widespread interest in understanding the impact, role, and usage of car
ridesourcing services as a whole, but there is very limited knowledge about the factors
affecting the use of motorcycle ride-sourcing services in a transportation system. In order to
understand the market penetration as well as to develop a model for including with travel
demand models, it has become necessary to study the socio-economic and demographic
factors that affect the frequency of using motorcycle ridesourcing in Dhaka City. Previous
studies explored the effect of socio-economic and demographic factors on the use of car
ridesourcing services, however, factors affecting the use of motorcycle ridesourcing services
have not been studied previously, especially from a developing country context.

DATA DESCRIPTION
For observing and collecting data, locations with educational institutions, shopping malls,
embassies, cinema halls were chosen. A total of 957 individuals were interviewed face-to-
face. The questionnaire survey was based on thirteen different questions. Twelve questions
were about socio-economic and demographic factors such as gender, age, marital status,
single person household, educational, employment status, smartphone, motorcycle, car,
license availability and monthly income. One question was about motorcycle ride-sourcing
frequency that was taken as the dependent variable. Descriptive statistics of the variables
utilized from the questionnaire are given in Table 1.

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Table 1: Data description

Variable Count %
Gender Male 735 76.80
Female 222 23.20
Age 18-24 292 30.51
24-34 268 28
35-44 219 22.88
45-54 87 9.09
55-64 66 6.90
65+ 25 2.61
Marital status Single 432 45.14
Married 525 54.86
Single person household Yes 326 34.06
No 631 65.94
Academic background Less than high school 14 1.46
High school graduate 420 43.88
Bachelor degree 321 33.54
Graduate 202 21.11
Employment status Employed full-time(paid) 413 43.16
Employed part- time(paid) 96 10.03
Self-employed 139 14.52
Un-employed 309 32.28
Smartphone availability Yes 888 92.79
No 69 7.21
Motorcycle ownership Yes 219 22.88
No 738 77.12
Car ownership Yes 109 11.39
No 848 88.61
Driving license Yes 258 26.96
availability No 699 73.04
Monthly income Less than 25,000 407 42.53
25,000-49,999 309 32.29
50,000-74,999 163 17.03
75,000 or more 78 8.15
Motorcycle Ride- Never do this 477 49.84
sourcing frequency Not in the past 30 days 217 22.68
1-3 or more per month 147 15.36
Once in a week 42 4.39
Two or more in week 74 7.79

METHODOLOGY
This research includes the modeling of ordinal dependent factors, with the potential presence
of unobserved factors. That’s why the selected model is an Ordered Probit model, which is
used to estimate relationships between an ordinal dependent variable and a set of independent
variables. In the order Probit model, the inverse standard normal distribution of the
probability is modeled as a linear combination of the predictors.
Here, we assume some latent variables which are directly related to the using propensity of
motorcycle ride-sourcing service. Let is an index of observation units (q = 1, 2,…,Q),
represents the using frequency of motorcycle ride-sourcing services, represents the index
for the discrete outcomes corresponding to the using frequency of motorcycle ridesourcing.
The index take numerical values representing “I never do this”, representing
“I do this but not in the past 30 days”, representing “I did this 1-3 or some more in the

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past 30 days”, representing "I did this 1 day per week”, and representing “I did
this 2 or more times per week” motorcycle ridesourcing services. The mathematical
formulation of the model can be represented as follows:

where if , , (1)

where represents the latent variables for individual , which indicate the propensity of
using motorcycle ridesourcing services. are vectors containing all independent variables
and represents the random error term of the model for individual that affect . The
vector of coefficients represents the effects of the independent variables . is the
threshold that divides into number of partitions equal to categories of , where
indicates the category of the dependent variable and indicates the total number of
categories of the dependent variables.
In this study, the error term is assumed to be independent and identically distributed (IID)
across individual q. Based on this assumption, the coefficient vector and the
parameters are estimated in statistical software Stata by maximizing the log-likelihood
function. The log-likelihood function can be expressed as follows:
∑ ∑ [ ] (2)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

From the statistical analysis it is observed that log-likelihood of the final model is -1132.07
and the likelihood ratio chi-square of the model is 236.33. The p-value of the LR test statistic
is less than 0.05, which indicates that that overall model is significant.

Table 2: Results of Ordered Probit Regression

Significant Category Coefficient Standard error Z-value

Variable
Gender Male 0.6997 0.1016 6.88***
(Base: Female)
Age 25-34 -0.2868 0.1221 -2.35*
(Base: 18-24) 35-44 -0.6062 0.1377 -4.40***
45-54 -0.7288 0.1721 -4.23***
55-64 -0.9647 0.1963 -4.91***
65+ -1.5317 0.4244 -3.61**
Academic Less than high school -0.8020 0.3878 -2.07*
Background High school graduate -0.3327 0.1066 -3.12**
(Base: Graduate) Bachelor degree -0.3124 0.1107 -2.82*
Employment Part-time 0.6150 0.1436 4.28***
(Base: Full time) Self-employed 0.4242 0.1120 3.79***
Unemployed 0.0000 - -
Income Tk 25000-49999 0.7460 0.1244 6.00***
(Base: Less than Tk Tk 50000-74999 1.0219 0.1355 7.54***
25000) Tk 75000 or more 0.4512 0.1699 2.65*
Car No 0.4679 0.1468 3.19***
(base Yes)
*** indicates p<0.001, ** indicates p<0.01, and * for p<0.05

After conducting several iterations with various combinations of independent variables, the
finalized model is reported in Table 2. The results indicate that on an average male is more

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likely to use motorcycle ride-sourcing than females. This is not unexpected since females are
more likely to feel less comfortable to ride with stranger motorcyclists, who are mostly
males. Furthermore, it is also found that elderly people have a negative correlation with
motorcycle ride-sourcing, most likely due to their lack of physical strength.
Individuals with a lower level of education are found to have a lower tendency to use
motorcycle ride-sourcing services, as they are not aware of such services due to their
interaction with technology and current news through media or peers. This finding is similar
to other studies (Alemi et al. 2018; Dias et al. 2017; Mitra et al. 2019) based on car
ridesourcing.
Employment status significantly influences the propensity of motorcycle ride-sourcing. Full-
time employed or self-employed individuals have a higher tendency to adopt motorcycle ride-
sourcing services than unemployed individuals, as employed individuals are more likely to
use such services because of work-related activities. Similar findings were reported by Dias
et al. (2017) for the case of car ridesourcing.
Income is positively correlated with motorcycle ride-sourcing and which is also similar to the
findings of Mitra et al. (2019). Interestingly, it is found that ridesourcing tendency decreased
for those with income more than Tk. 75000 than people who earn between Tk 25,000 to Tk
75,000. One possible interpretation is that motorcycle ride-sourcing services are costly in
comparison to public transport services, therefore, middle income individuals face less
difficulty in affording ridesourcing than lower income people. However, the propensity of
ridesourcing decreased for people with higher income, i.e., more than Tk 75,000, since these
people usually have their own vehicle or can afford more costly transportation services, such
as taxi and car ridesourcing. It is also found that people without a car are more likely to adopt
motorcycle ride-sourcing than the private car owners.

CONCLUSIONS
This research is conducted to find the impact of socio-economic and demographic factors
affecting the frequency of using motorcycle ridesourcing in Dhaka city by interviewing
around one thousand individuals. An ordered probit model of motorcycle ridesourcing
frequency is developed based on various socio-economic and demographic variables.
Among the independent variables, gender, age, academic background, employment status,
monthly income, and vehicle ownership are found to have significant correlation on the use
frequency of motorcycle ridesourcing. Motorcycle ride-sourcing companies can focus on
these factors to determine incentives for passengers. Furthermore, transportation planners can
integrate the developed model in their travel demand forecasting models.
In our study, we are limited to Dhaka city only, therefore, further study can be conducted by
collecting data from several cities to develop a panel data model. Furthermore, in this study
coefficient of variables is considered constant across the individual, therefore, a random
parameter model with varying coefficient across individuals can reveal more interesting
findings.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A heartfelt thanks to Mr. Soumik Nafis Sadeek for his invaluable suggestions on writing this
paper, which helped us to improve our paper.

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REFERENCES
1. B. Irani, “Population growth kept at bay despite flagging initiatives,” Dhaka Tribune,
2017.
2. F. Alemi, G. Circella, S. Handy, and P. Mokhtarian, “What influences travelers to use
Uber? Exploring the factors affecting the adoption of on-demand ride services in
California,” Travel Behav. Soc., vol. 13, no. July 2017, pp. 88–104, 2018.
3. F. F. Dias, P. S. Lavieri, V. M. Garikapati, S. Astroza, R. M. Pendyala, and C. R. Bhat,
“A BEHAVIORAL CHOICE MODEL OF THE USE OF CAR-SHARING AND
RIDE-SOURCING SERVICES bivariate ordered probit model, market adoption and
use of disruptive mobility services, travel demand forecasting,” no. March, 2017.
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based comparison of taxis, transit, and ridesourcing services in San Francisco,”
Transp. Policy, vol. 45, 2016.
5. R. M. Medeiros, F. Duarte, F. Achmad, and A. Jalali, “Merging ICT and informal
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2018.
6. R. Quaium, “Wheels in motion,” Dhaka Tribune, 2017.
7. S. K. Mitra, Y. Bae, and S. G. Ritchie, “Use of Ride-Hailing Services among Older
Adults in the United States,” Transp. Res. Rec., vol. 2673, no. 3, pp. 700–710, 2019.
8. “Stata: Software for Statistics and Data Science,” Available: https://www.stata.com/.
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Rakibur Rahman graduated from the department of Civil Engineering at International
University of Business Agriculture and Technology. His research interests are travel
behavior modeling, statistical modeling, and sustainable transportation.
Shajalal Sarker is an undergraduate student in the department of Civil Engineering at
International University of Business Agriculture and Technology. His research
interests are public transport and intelligent transport systems.
Md. Jahidul Islam graduated from International University of Business Agriculture and
Technology with a degree in Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. His research
interests are choice modeling, travel behaviour, demand models, and network
modeling.
Md. Hishamur Rahman completed his graduation from Islamic University of Technology.
He is currently working as a Senior Lecturer in the department of Civil Engineering at
International University of Business Agriculture and Technology. His research
interests include transportation data science, discrete choice modeling, intelligent
transportation systems, and machine learning.

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