The impact of regulatory level of the aggregation platforms on the ride-sourcing market with heterogeneous travelers

In recent years, aggregation platforms in the ride-sourcing (RS) market, such as Gaode, Meituan, and Baidu, have integrated the RS services offered by multiple independent RS companies. The emergence of aggregation platforms can alleviate the problem of market fragmentation. However, the poor regulatory level of the aggregation platform poses numerous issues, such as low vehicle and driver compliance rates, prominent safety hazards, and difficulty for passengers to claim their rights, which distract passengers to a great extent. Thus, this paper proposes an optimization model that considers the impact of the regulatory level of the aggregation platform on heterogeneous travelers. At the uppermost level, the aggregation platform determines the appropriate regulatory level and charges RS companies a commission fee. In the middle level, RS companies determine the optimal trip fare. The travel choice of customers is modeled as the lowest level. The study provides reference to regulate the aggregation platforms.