考慮雙邊私有資訊下探討議價對計程車服務的影響

Abstract

計程車是一種大眾運輸工具，提供快速、方便、點對點和二十四小時的運輸服務。計程車的費率結構根據地區不同而有差異，目前主要是由當地政府主動制定價格公式。由政府主導價格不僅能有效降低司機與乘客間資訊不對稱的問題，也能避免司機間的惡性競爭。然而計程車常用的計價公式(起程運價、續程運價、延滯計時)已經被許多研究指出有公平性的問題，並可能導致計程車市場缺乏效率。因此有別於其他相關研究專注於如何改善計程車計價公式，本研究嘗試在傳統費率結構上加入議價的選項。 本研究針對司機與乘客間的互動關係以及現行計程車費率結構，在參考相關研究後提出一數學模型，並使用賽局理論進行分析。首先在考量司機能自行決定其車速的前提下，探討在現有的跳表計價制度中，加上議價收費方式，對司機與乘客雙方會有何影響。其次在模型中加入乘客緊急程度私有化此變因，探討乘客逆向選擇的情境，並提出當跳表與議價併行時，司機與乘客分別的最佳決策。 本研究最終發現，在司機能自行決定其車速的前提下，無論是否有資訊不對稱的問題，加入議價收費都同時有益於司機與乘客，這是因為在加入議價收費的選項下，議價會促使司機提高車速，產生雙贏的可能性。因此本研究認為議價收費應該被進一步討論與使用。

Taxis are classified as a public transportation mode that is speedy, convenient, and provided with 24-hour-per-day availability. The taxi’s fare structures are different across cities, and is often determined by local governments. These pricing regulations from governments not only alleviate information asymmetry between the driver and customer, but also avoid the price war among drivers. However, typical current taxi fare structures, which is composed of initial charges, distance-based charges, and delay-based charges has been pointed out that is unfair and sometimes causes the inefficiency of the taxi market. Dissimilar with other studies which make efforts in improving the taxi fare formulas, this study tries to mix menu pricing with traditional fare structures. In this study, we propose a game-theoretic model to discuss the interactions between the driver and the customer. We then use game theory to derive analytical solutions. We first discuss the moral hazard only model, in which the driver can decide the taxi speed. We then add hidden information, customer urgency, into the model to discuss the impact of the adverse selection problem. Equilibrium strategies are then derived. We discover that when the taxi driver can decide her speed, menu pricing improves the efficiency of market with or without the adverse selection problem. In addition, it is shown that adding menu pricing as an option into traditional metered pricing can induce higher taxi speed and cause a win-win situation. In conclusion, menu pricing is a valuable pricing scheme for taxi industry and should be investigated further in the future.