From service cues to behavioral intention: Trust formation under uncertainty in a demand-responsive transit pilot in Wuxi, China

Abstract

When people encounter a novel digitally mediated service, behavioral intention may depend not only on perceived utility but also on whether service cues can be translated into trust under uncertainty. Demand-responsive transit (DRT), which combines app-based coordination with physically delivered mobility, provides a useful context for examining this process. Although DRT is increasingly promoted as a sustainable mobility solution, many pilot services struggle to convert initial exposure into stable user commitment. This study examined whether trust in the platform functions as a proximal psychological mechanism linking service evaluations to behavioral intention during early deployment. Based on survey data from active early adopters N 147 in a human-driven DRT pilot in Wuxi, China, this study tested a hierarchical adoption mechanism using partial least-squares structural equation modeling. The framework integrates functional attributes (personalization), process experience (convenience), global evaluation (service quality), transactional cues (price fairness), and institutional cues (perceived privacy protection). The results support a hierarchical upstream pathway: Personalization significantly enhanced convenience, convenience predicted service quality, and both service quality and perceived privacy protection significantly predicted trust. Trust, in turn, was the only statistically significant proximal predictor of behavioral intention in the full model. Further tests showed significant indirect effects from personalization to service quality through convenience and from privacy protection to intention through trust. Longer chained paths ending in intention were positive but did not meet the conservative dual criterion for statistical significance. These findings support a trust-centered account of early-stage adoption for high-uncertainty, hybrid digital–physical services and suggest that upstream service cues may influence intention mainly when they are converted into platform trust.