In September 2023, Painted Dog Research conducted research for the Department of Transport (DoT), to measure:

• how people use on-demand transport in WA; and 
• how they feel about it.

Understanding more about passenger behaviour and sentiment will:

• help the Department of Transport (DoT) when we develop future regulations, as well as informing our communications and educational messaging; and
• support industry to provide services in line with customer wants and expectations.

Methodology

Over 1,000 people in the Perth metropolitan area and almost 350 regional residents completed a survey. After this, small focus groups were conducted to further explore the survey findings.

Note: in this research, on-demand transport was defined as including:

• any conventional taxi;
• a wheelchair accessible taxi;
• any rideshare service;
• a charter vehicle service (e.g. private airport transfers);
• any limousine service;
• any charter bus service (e.g. school excursions, mining company transport); and
• any party bus.

Key findings

• In the last 12 months:
  • 71% of Perth metropolitan residents have used on-demand transport; and
  • 50% of regional residents have used on-demand transport.
• 1 in 2 people use on-demand transport to get to or from bars, restaurants or social outings.
• According to passengers, the three most important things for providers to get right are reliability, pricing and driver skills. 
• At least 8 in 10 passengers are satisfied with their most recent on-demand transport experience.
• Passengers think the best thing about on-demand transport is convenience, while cancelled trips are the worst.
• Safety is very important to passengers. Their most important safety features are:
  • police checks for drivers;
  • GPS tracking for their trips; and
  • camera surveillance in the vehicle.

Number of authorised passenger transport drivers 

A notifiable occurrence is an incident of a serious nature that involves, or has the potential to result in injury, violence or abuse of a person. On-demand booking services (ODBSs) are required to submit details of notifiable occurrences to the Department of Transport (DoT) as soon as is practicable.

An alleged driver conduct report is a report made by an authorised ODBS to notify DoT of allegations that a driver of an on-demand passenger transport vehicle was engaged in conduct that would affect the driver’s suitability to drive in the on-demand transport industry. Alleged driver conduct reports must be made within 48 hours of the ODBS becoming aware of the alleged conduct.

The below information reflects reports received for incidents that occurred from 1 July 2019 onwards.

Visit On-demand transport industry portals for more information about notifiable occurrences and alleged driver conduct reports.

Please note: the incident numbers reported below may not be fully reflective of all incidents that have occurred, as DoT’s data relies on reports to be received from ODBSs.