Effect of Online car rental services on

Public Transport
Key words: Online selection of cars, rental, customer satisfaction, types
Of buyers, bookings, Innovation, coupon redemption, cab services, price consciousness, consumer
behavior

Introduction:
The global car rental industry has been experiencing a major transformation over the last few
years. Intense competition and exigent economic conditions prevalent across the globe have
driven transformation in the industry over the historical period. The operators have undergone a
significant change in their business models to remain competitive and enhance profitability.

With the increased number of people going out to work, their lifestyles have changed drastically.
For travelling to and fro, people have started getting their vehicles instead of relying on public
transport. However, people in metros or semi-metro cities do not wish to take their cars or
vehicles out owing to the intense traffic and other expenses like parking and driver. Therefore,
with the introduction of cab services like Ola and Uber in the country, people have become
dependent on these services. They prefer cab service over driving themselves to places they want
to go.

The taxi market is growing at a rapid pace because of the affordable rates charged by some of the
top cab service companies. With cab service provider giants like Ola and Uber providing
affordable services and the introduction of GST, it can be said the market has gained more scope
for growth.

The impact of information technology in the industry has driven the transformation of the car
rental services. The growing trend of using the Internet for customizing travel trips and online
reservations & bookings is anticipated to propel the use of technology in the industry. The
implementation of technology in these services makes the whole process safe, quick, reliable,
and easy for consumers. In addition to this, the hassle-free process of online reservations and
bookings increases convenience for both, the operators and customers.

An emerging trend in the industry is the advancement of global operators towards industry
consolidation as the top five key companies accounted for a substantial share of the overall
industry in 2015. Prominent operators are increasingly undergoing mergers and acquisitions as
well as forming joint ventures in order to expand their business territory, capture new emerging
market potentials, and enhance the overall profitability. However, the tightening stringent vehicle
emission regulations and high volatility in the crude oil prices worldwide are anticipated to
challenge the growth over the forecast period.
The applications are primarily categorized into on-airport and off-airport rentals. The on-airport
application includes airport transport, whereas off-airport applications include outstation, local
usage, and others comprising primarily leisure activities. The airport transport segment is
anticipated to remain the highest revenue generating segment in the coming years. The growth in
this segment can be attributed to the rise in air travelers among the global population. The
increase in the number of air travelers is expected to propel the demand for car rentals in the
airport transport.

The local travel and outstation applications are presumed to witness a high penetration into the
market over the forecast period. The growth in the local travel can be attributed to the lack of
timing and route flexibility exhibited by the public transport, which has culminated in people
turning toward rental service providers for the day-to-day intra-city navigation. The outstation
segment is expected to contribute to the growth significantly as it caters to the weekend traveling
activities of the population as well as facilitates the inter-state business transport needs.

The other application segment includes employee transportation solutions and event
transportation solutions. Increased proliferation of businesses and cultural events in the leisure
segment are expected to impact the growth of this segment positively in the coming years. The
application of car rentals in the employee and event transportation solutions is a cheap and less
polluting alternative as it helps in the transportation of a large number of passengers; the segment
accounted for over 10% of the entire industry.

Vehicle Type Insights

The types of vehicles analyzed in the report include Multi Utility Vehicles (MUVs), Sports
Utility Vehicles (SUVs), economy cars, executive cars, and luxury cars. Economy cars
dominated the overall industry share in 2015 and are expected to retain their dominance over the
next eight years. Users opting for rental cars for the inter-city transport or for a shorter time span
generally prefer economy cars over others. Economy cars are comparatively cheaper and deliver
higher mileage than others. The growth in this segment is primarily driven by the cost-
effectiveness of these cars.

Executive cars are presumed to witness a significant growth over the next eight years owing to
the rising demand originating from corporates. There has been a rise in business and leisure trips
among the global population. Business travelers typically demand higher product and service
quality as well as reliability in their travel and vehicle. This rising need among business travelers
is predicted to boost the demand for rental executive cars worldwide.

SUVs and MUVs are anticipated to exhibit a marginal growth over the next eight years. There
has been a moderate growth in the number of travelers for recreational and leisure purposes.
Furthermore, the rising economies of the developing regions, coupled with the growing
disposable income levels among the general population, have led to an increase in the leisure and
recreational activities. This rise in the disposable income levels among the general population is
presumed to drive the demand for SUVs and MUVs in the coming years.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Hanif and Sagar (2016) had stated that there was demand for Call-a-Cab service offered by Meru
Cab. The cab services are proving security through global positioning system (GPS) and women
taxi drivers for women passengers especially during night times. According to Harding et al
(2016) the auto-rickshaws (three wheelers) are more popular in urban transport before the advent
of cars and cabs.
Horsu and Yeboah (2015) had argued that driver behavior have negative impact on customer
satisfaction in Ghana. The variables like continuous service, comfort, reliability and affordability
have an impact on customer satisfaction with regard to minicab taxi.
According to Lu et al (2015) the self- service mobile technologies helps the commuters to access
lot of data about cab services and such technologies had changed the role of both customers and
companies. The adoption of call taxi app (CTA) is impacted perceived usefulness, perceived ease
of use, subjective norms and perceived playfulness (Peng, Wang, He, Guo, & Lin, 2014). Chen
(2014) had explained that mobile apps help both drivers and passengers to find each other.
At present the mobile apps are helps the customers to find cabs. In the recent years the car rental
industry is growing constantly especially in metropolitan cities in India (Rahman, 2014).

3. Objective of the study

This study helps the marketing managers in car services industry and academicians to gain
insights about consumer behavior towards cab services.

The objective of the proposed Online Car Rental System, the users are able to enter the
company's website for searching and reserving their favorite cars easily through the Internet and
it can be accessed anywhere anytime in the world. Hence, the company is able to improve their
customer satisfaction level, increasing efficiency by provides better services to their customer.
Therefore, the proposed web-based system has the following features that will be included in the
Online Car Rental System. With the proposed system, the achievable advantages are as follows:

1. View tracking history and update personal information the registered members are allowed to
view and track the reservation history. Besides, they are able to update their personal information
if necessary from time-to-time.

2. View updated and latest travel guide, airlines or flights information, banking or insurance
information, hotels or restaurants information. The registered and unregistered users are able to
view the latest and updated information about the Malaysia's travel guide, airlines or flights
information, banking or insurance information, and hotels or restaurants information.

3. View cars with affordable pricing the rental pricing for each type of cars are clearly listed in
the propose system to enable the registered and unregistered users to compare themselves with
their competitors. The listed pricing are affordable for employed and unemployed employees or
citizens who their incomes range are between low-medium levels to upper-upper level.
 4. Post suggestions, comments, and complaints The registered and unregistered users are able to
post their suggestions, comments and complaints through the propose system. Therefore, the
company will improve themselves from time-to-time to ensure that their customers are satisfied
with their services given.

5. Print reports The propose system is able to generate reports such as monthly car reservation
reports and monthly GPS navigation device reservation reports to the management for further
improvements purpose or future reference purpose.

4. Data Collection Method

Store one record for every potential ride. Update this record according to what happens.

 Shift id –it provides us with driver and cab details for a given ride.
 Ride start time and ride end time – These are updated when drivers signal that they are
currently busy (ride start) and subsequently available again (ride end).
 Address starting point and address destination – These are the locations where a ride starts and
ends. The driver will probably search for both locations to get the navigation on his tablet
or GPS, so that’s likely when we’ll update these two attributes.
 GPS starting point and GPS destination – These are the GPS coordinates of the starting and
ending locations described above. These values are optional because we’ll update them
only when we have data Canceled – This is a simple Yes/No value that tells us if a ride has
been canceled. We’ll already have a record for that ride in our table, so we can just mark
the ride as canceled.
 Payment type id and price – These provide information about the amount paid for a ride and
the payment method used by the customer

5. Analysis and Interpretation

The majority of the respondents belong to age group of 20 – 38 years. Most of the respondents
fall under the category of employees.
1. Demographic Characteristics
2. Age wise distribution of customer
3. Profession of online customers
4. How much is the frequency of online booking
5. Main Reason for using online cab service
6. Methods of payments
7. Prices between websites prior to making your purchase decision
8. Satisfactions while using rental car services in terms of payment, usage and reliability
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-Submitted by
Himanshu H. Sukhdeve
Marketing-C
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