Adoption and User Satisfaction of Ride-Sourcing: Implications for Sustainable Urban Mobility

Ride-sourcing can expand flexible access within urban transport systems, with its contribution to sustainable mobility shaped by the modes, trip purposes, and mobility conditions it serves. Existing research often examines service selection and post-use evaluation separately, leaving limited evidence on how these stages differ in mature, regulated markets with broad mobility choice. This study examines this distinction in the United Arab Emirates using an exploratory, sequential mixed-methods design. Fifteen semi-structured interviews supported contextual and construct refinement, followed by an online survey of 191 adults, including 143 prior ride-sourcing users. Descriptive analyses examined service-selection patterns, while a 28-indicator, nine-path exploratory covariance-structure model was estimated for 136 complete prior-user cases using maximum-likelihood estimation in SAS PROC CALIS. Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.799 to 0.961. Overall satisfaction was most strongly associated with perceived post-ride support (β = 0.58507), followed by driver behavior (β = 0.29470), application ease (β = 0.28788), and perceived safety (β = 0.15609). Cost and fare reliability and time-related service reliability showed no significant direct associations with satisfaction. A 5000-resample nonparametric bootstrap reproduced the same hypothesis-support pattern. The findings distinguish the contextual conditions associated with ride-sourcing selection from the service-experience perceptions associated with post-use evaluation. They highlight user-facing capabilities that can support dependable multimodal participation, service quality, and mobility governance within sustainable urban transport systems.