Project Summary
Ride-hailing companies, such as Uber and Lyft, are starting to partner with municipalities and transit operators on pilot projects that provide subsidized travel to passengers connecting to public transportation. These pilots have the potential to inform a new model for delivering sustainable, cost-effective and equitable public transportation. However, it is unclear how these pilots are performing given data needed to evaluate performance is confidential or proprietary. In addition, it is unclear how lessons learned from these pilots are spreading among transit agencies and being used to inform future pilots. This project aims to identify the factors informing the implementation of pilots that provide a subsidy to passengers who use ride-hailing to connect to public transportation. There are three key components of the analysis in this project:
• Provide a detailed summary of ride-hailing companies and transit agency pilots and document the current state of the practice in regard to programs initiated in these pilots. Some of the pilot features that will be examined include: type(s) of public transportation (e.g., bus, light-rail), number and locations of transit stations in the pilot, geographic extent of the pilot, land uses and other characteristics of the areas surrounding the stations, ride-hailing (or other) service providers in the pilot, amount and type of subsidies passengers receive and source of funding for the subsidy, contributions of and benefits received by partnership members, start and end date of the pilot, and changes made to any of the listed features over the duration of the pilot.
• Evaluate each pilot from the perspective of the public transportation operator administering the pilot. Surveys with public transportation operators will be conducted to gain a better understanding of the pilot’s performance and lessons learned; if the pilot will continue and/or become a stable part of the public transportation system; and the essential factors for evaluating their pilot.
• Document information sharing related to the spread of these pilots. This part of analysis will examine questions related to how well the pathways of information sharing and learning are enabling the emergence of best practices related to these pilots.