The logo of the ride-sharing service Uber is seen in front of its headquarters on Aug. 26, 2016, in San Francisco, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)
Findings of a recent study undertaken by three universities in the United States has suggested that ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft may discriminate on the basis of gender and race. The researchers took as many as 1,500 rides in the Boston and Seattle regions to collect data from three different taxi-hailing companies.
The study published by National Bureau of Economic Research found that compared to the white riders, black rides had to often endure longer waiting times as well as frequent cancellation. Similarly, women may be duped by the drivers, as they have often been taken on elongated routes and also charged more.
The study was conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, and the University of Washington over two years. Undergraduates at these universities were provided with identical phones with ride-sharing apps from Uber, Lyft and Flywheel. They were each asked to take rides on a few selected routes.
The undergraduates were asked to note down a few details like when they requested the ride, when the driver accepted the request, when they were picked up and when they reached their destination. The researchers at Seattle belonged to different racial backgrounds, while each researcher who participated in the Boston experiment, requested rides under two names - one white name and another typically black name.
During the experiment, it was observed that both UberX and Lyft took about 28 percent time longer to accept trip requests from black riders in Seattle compared to those from their white counterparts. It was also found that women were exposed to longer routes by some drivers for profiteering, BBC reported.
In Boston, the cancellation rate for black-sounding names was more than twice as frequent as for those using white-sounding names. Moreover, it was found that the chances of ride requests from males with black-sounding names more likely to be cancelled.
On the other hand, female passengers were taken to their destinations via elongated routes. Female researchers stated that often some drivers were "chatty" and they drove them on very long routes. Sometimes, they even drove through an intersection several times just to charge more. The researchers noted that apparently the female riders were exposed to extra travel for profiteering as well as to flirt with passengers.
Concluding their report, the authors noted, "Passengers have faced a history of discrimination in transportation systems." They added that top hail-riding companies like Uber and Lyft present the "opportunity to set right the long prevailing discrimination or worsen it." The authors suggested that removing names of the guilty drivers from trip bookings may help to ease the immediate problem, but other means should be introduced to end the discrimination."
Watch undercover agents investigating alleged discrimination by taxi drivers in Washington DC:
