What is Ride-Hailing

This chapter focuses on riders (consumers) who use the Uber ride-hailing application as a gig platform for accessing transportation services, thereby assigning drivers the task of transporting them from one location to another. Respondents were sampled using a multiple sampling approach comprising convenience, random, and purposive sampling. 20 out of 40 respondents were purposely selected for in-depth interviewing and thematic analysis. The findings suggest that riders found the platform to offer both personal and shared convenience, cost and time saving, as well as trustworthiness. The platform also substituted the means of finding transportation for some of the riders, while for other riders it complemented their means of finding transportation. With these findings, this study contributes to the few scholarly studies that have sought to explore, in detail, user perceptions on gig platforms from a developing economy context and provides stimulating insights on the gig economy and its adoption in developing economies.