E-Hailing Services: A Study of Customers Awareness and Service-Related Problems

The fast-paced growth of e-hailing services in recent years has led to the increased use of their services for urban transport. The reason behind their growth is their accessibility via mobile technologies. The present study aimed at exploring customer awareness towards e-hailing services and their major problems. The required data of the study was collected through a structured questionnaire from 133 respondents. Sampling method applied in the study was convenience sampling method. Secondary data based on published works from scholarly articles, reports, website resources and other relevant documents were also applied in the study.  Pearson's chi-square test and Garret ranking were employed for statistical analysis of data. Most (87%) of the respondents had moderate knowledge about e-hailing services while only few (5.2%) had high knowledge. There existed significant relationship between awareness of e-hailing services with family income (P=0.046), educational qualification(P<0.00) and frequency of e-hailing service utilization(P=0.016). There was no significant association found between awareness of e-hailing services with age, gender, occupation, marital status, area of residence, type of family and number of family members. From the Garret ranking it is concluded that issues involving payments/billing were perceived as the most critical challenges facing the customers followed closely by problems of poor service quality rendered, difficulties encountered in getting contact with the drivers, poor responses given by customers and safety concerns. Accordingly, fare increases were considered least important.