Assessment of Profitability of Small-Scale Traditional Taxi Services: A Case Study of a Taxi Stand

Taxis play a pivotal role in urban mobility by offering passengers flexible, comfortable, and door-to-door services. Despite the advent of the sharing economy, ensuring the continuity of traditional taxi services necessitates profitability analyses. For this reason, this study focuses on the economic profitability of trips made at a taxi stand serving the urban arteries of Istanbul. With the aim this, a survey was conducted among the drivers of a taxi stand. Subsequently, a model was developed, incorporating factors such as the number of trips (TRP), total trip distance (DST) and efficiency (EFF), which impact the profitability of taxi services. The modeling approach employed in this study is Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Additionally, contour plots were utilized to provide a more accurate assessment of the effects of factors. The results indicate that the EFF factor is the crucial factor influencing the profitability of traditional taxi services. This underscores the significance of the distance covered with passengers, highlighting its importance for both the economic success of taxi services and the broader network context of urban transportation.