Toward a Framework for a Transportation Service Sharing Economy Platform with a Blockchain-based Service Review System

Abstract

Several countries including Thailand currently face a phenomenon of population aging as a consequence of a combination of increasing life expectancy and a low birthrate. As people age, they may require doctor appointments more often to treat illness or for regular health checks. This is challenging for some families since caregivers need to work and do not have time to take their parents or senior relatives to go to a medical center. In this research, a framework of a sharing economy platform for a senior transportation service, particularly focusing on the service to a medical center, is proposed and evaluated through the prototype system as a proof-of-concept. Decentralized technology in the form of blockchain, smart contract, and interplanetary file system (IPFS) are integrated in the proposed platform to tackle the challenges of transparency and trust with reviews of the provided service. The study results indicate that a hybrid architecture between centralized and decentralized system is feasible for the proposed sharing economy platform and the emerging technology of decentralized technology has a great potential to drive the future development of a service review system.