Ride-hailing in Metro Vancouver: Uber, Lyft, Sidecar - emerging technologies

[officedweller]

Of interest:

Understanding the Recent Transit Ridership Decline in Major US Cities:
Service Cuts or Emerging Modes?

ABSTRACT
Public transit ridership in major US cities has been flat or declining over the past few years.
Several authors have attempted both to explain this trend and to offer policy recommendations
for how to respond to it. Past writing on the topic is dominated by theoretical arguments that
identify possible explanations, with the few empirical analyses excluding the most recent data,
from 2015-2018, where the decline is steepest. This research conducts a longitudinal analysis of
the determinants of public transit ridership in major North American cities for the period 2002-
2018, segmenting the analysis by mode to capture differing effects on rail versus bus.

Our research finds that standard factors, such changes in service levels, gas price and auto
ownership, while important, are insufficient to explain the recent ridership declines. We find
that the introduction of bike share in a city is associated with increased light and heavy rail
ridership, but a 1.8% decrease in bus ridership. Our results also suggest that for each year after
Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) enter a market, heavy rail ridership can be expected
to decrease by 1.3% and bus ridership can be expected to decrease by 1.7%. This TNC effect
builds with each passing year and may be an important driver of recent ridership declines.

http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/01/19-04931-Transit-Trends.pdf