Does the Implementation of Ride-Hailing Services Affect Urban Road Safety? The Experience of Madrid

Abstract

In recent years, changes have occurred in consumption, ownership, and social relations, giving rise to new economic models in which technology enables new ways of connecting, creating, and sharing value. The nature of transport has transformed with the emergence of mobile applications, such as Uber and Cabify, which offer an alternative to the services traditionally provided by the taxi and chauffeur-driven hire vehicle (CDV) sectors. These services have developed within a context of market regulation of the taxi and CDV which are subject to considerable unjustified restrictions for entering and operating in the market, including the numerus clausus of licenses, the limited geographical scope of the license and, in the case of taxis, the regulation of prices as inflexible public rates. Bearing in mind the latest legislative changes affecting mostly the provision of the services of these platforms, this study analyzes whether the number of traffic accident victims has fallen since the introduction of these services in the city of Madrid using a Random Effects Negative Binominal model. The results show that the deployment of these platforms is associated with a reduction of 25% in the number of serious injuries and deaths.