As Uber and Lyft move into cities, vehicle ownership increases

When Uber and Lyft riding companies show up in urban areas, vehicle registrations per person go up by an average of 0.7%, rising even more in car-dependent cities. Researchers reporting in the journal iScience on January 6 made this finding by analyzing data from major U.S. cities from 2011 to 2017, comparing trends in cities where Uber and Lyft into the ones where they weren’t. They also found that Uber and Lyft are moving more and more into cities with higher incomes and fewer children.

“I would expect people to own fewer vehicles once they have access to this alternative mode of transport,” said Jeremy Michalek, professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author. examined. “But that is not what we see in the data. One explanation could be that there is an influence on the other side, where someone who was close to being able to buy a vehicle has now motivated one and made some money with it. So the adoption of vehicles with Uber and Lyft drivers may outweigh the impact of riders getting rid of their personal vehicles. ”

The researchers also studied the impact of riding services on mobility use. Although on average, there was no significant effect, they found that cities with higher incomes and fewer children are seeing a greater reduction in mobility use.

“What it means to me is that, in a city with a disposable income and fewer children, they don’t have to worry about paying more for a more convenient mode of transport, and don’t have to they worry about logistics like taking a car seat, ”Michalek said.

While the researchers could identify trends across cities in their data analysis, they are also interested in studying how these trends are emerging in specific cities. Moreover, their analysis only reports pre-pandemic patterns that have certainly changed due to COVID-19.

“In fact, the pandemic has caused major changes in road travel, public transportation, and general transport movements. With many workers working from home, and many others choosing to use personal vehicles for travel, riding services have fallen in riders, ”Michalek said. “The question is, once the pandemic is behind us, do we return to the types of travel patterns and choices we saw before the pandemic, or are there systematic changes that will not return to normal? because people have their behavior changed permanently? We won’t know for sure until it happens. “

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The authors were supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Carnegie Mellon University.

iScience, Michalek et al .: “The Impact of Uber and Lyft on Vehicle Ownership, Fuel Economy & Transition Across U.S. Cities”
https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(20)31130-5

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