February 23, 2016

Should ridesourcing apps go the way of the jitney?

As smartphone adoption has increased, entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the new business models and service opportunities enabled by this technology. Companies such as Uber pioneered the app-based platform for ridesourcing in 2010 and have continued to flourish in this new age of smartphone-enabled transit services; from 2010 to 2014 they expanded from services solely in the City of San Francisco to 64% of the entire US population. A U.S. PIRG (the federation of U.S. non-profit Public Interest Research Groups) study in 2015 found that ridesourcing services were offered in 59 out of the 70 cities reviewed.

Recently, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick compared the rapid growth of modern-day ridesourcing services to that of jitneys – the informal taxi services that took US cities by storm in the 1910s. (Kalanick was by no means the first to make this comparison.) Jitneys experienced the same over-night boom in popularity which led to similar reactions of shock and fear from city policy-makers and regulated taxi services. In cities such as Los Angeles, jitneys were rapidly outlawed due to a dramatic decrease in public train service ridership and revenue.

While the jitney comparison provides some historical context to warrant and seemingly justify public and private concern regarding ridesourcing services in general, and Uber in particular, it by no means serves as conclusive evidence. Further, the jitneys took their dying breath within five years of their inception. In contrast, ridesourcing services are not only going strong after six years, but they have continued to grow and expand.

Take Uber for example; as they continue to grow and expand, they have tried different variations of and expansions on the original ridesourcing platform that made them famous such as their most recent adaptation – UberHOP. On December 10, 2015, Seattle became the first city globally to pilot UberHOP with three, designated routes shown on the left-hand side of Figure 1. The service promised “a flat fare” of $5 to share an SUV ride with up to five (5) other UberHOP riders “along some of the city’s most popular routes”. Shortly thereafter, UberHOP also launched in Toronto, Canada with more routes and even cheaper fares than those offered in Seattle. Shortly after the initial launch, the routes offered in Seattle expanded as did the pricing range: from $3.75 – $5 depending on time of day and route with an added promotion of $1 rides during the month of February.

 

According to Uber’s Toronto press release, the goal of UberHOP is to provide citizens with an alternative to single occupancy vehicles (SOVs) so that they can “rely more on ridesharing and less on their personal vehicles to help reduce traffic and congestion”. While this is a common goal for cities worldwide, dissenting voices are concerned that “UberHOP is Uber’s latest idea for killing mass transit” and instead of replacing SOV trips, the expanded repertoire of ridesourcing and sharing services will only undermine operational funds for public transit agencies.

At the Transportation Research Board (TRB) meeting held in January this year, representatives from the public, private, and academic research sectors attended multiple workshops to discuss the present and future of shared-use mobility; among other things, the group recognized that “additional research is needed to understand the impact of shared-use mobility modes, in particular on-demand ridesourcing (e.g. uberX, Lyft, Sidecar, etc.)”. Based on an intercept survey of ridesourcing users completed in May and June of 2014 in San Francisco, two of the top three primary reasons for mode choice were related to trip time as shown in Figure 2. Further, the study found that in most cases, ridesourcing or taxi (combined in this study) services provided faster trip times than comparable transit services as shown in Figure 3.

Ultimately, the study found that riders with access to a personal vehicle predominantly utilized the ridesharing service in place of an SOV trip; for those without a personal vehicle, however, the ridesourcing service replaced a transit trip.

 

The authors of this study, however, recognize the limitations of this information; the survey was completed during late afternoon/evening hours in three, small areas of the city (The Marina, North Beach, and The Mission). As a result, the majority of trips represented were related to social or leisure activities, which leads to serious concerns regarding the generalizability of the study. While it provides an interesting look at the implications of ridesourcing mode shifts for evening, leisure activities of young professionals in a few neighborhoods of San Francisco, it does not provide a clear guide related to the general impact of ridesourcing services.

With all of this in mind, the question still remains – what is the effect of ridesourcing services on mode split within cities? Until a clear, generalizable understanding of this question is reached, it will be difficult to establish an appropriate relationship between ridesourcing services and local government agencies. Despite the commonalities between the rapid rise of jitneys and ridesourcing services, the same, rapid decline in public transit ridership is not as apparent in modern cities. While initial studies suggest some decrease in public transit mode split, the impact of more general daytime travel remains unclear. With the introduction of UberHOP, the ridesourcing menu has not only expanded, but a new window into the effects of these services in relation to rider preferences has emerged.

Further study is clearly necessary to determine how UberHOP in particular, and ridesourcing services in general, interact with other, available transportation modes and services – can the relationship be symbiotic, or must such services go the way of the jitney for the sake of ensuring equitable access to transportation for all?