Competition between Emerging and Conventional Transportation Modes: A Context-Dependent Analysis

Abstract

Driven by advances in information technology, the sharing economy has rapidly expanded in the transportation sector. New demand has been identified and addressed by modes such as ridesourcing and car-sharing, while travelers and the market remain in transition. This study explores travelers' mode choice preferences under the competition between emerging and conventional modes. A stated choice experiment was conducted in Northeast China, resulting in 337 valid responses, and a random parameter error component model was estimated. The results indicate that emerging and conventional modes form distinct groups with shared unobserved components. More importantly, their relationship is condition-dependent rather than uniform. Conventional modes dominate under structured conditions, while emerging modes become more competitive in flexible contexts. This suggests that emerging modes act as conditional competitors rather than direct substitutes. Competition across modes is asymmetrical, and socio-demographic factors such as income and familiarity with ride-sourcing further shape mode preferences.