University of California, Davis. Institute of Transportation Studies
Abstract
USDOT Grant 69A3551747109Caltrans Grant 65A0674Launched with the promise of \u201ccar-sharing\u201d reducing the need for private vehicle ownership, ridehail/TNC services such as Uber and Lyft have been in competition with transit agencies for riders ever since their emergence - prompting the question whether ridehail is a complement to or a substitute for transit. This study uses person-level data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey and from a SACOG travel model (\u201cSACOG Replica\u201d) to evaluate the overlap between users of ridehailing (such as Uber and Lyft) and public transit riders, and whether the complementarity between modes varies across space. While usage of both transit and ridehailing is greater within half a mile of frequent rail service than further from stations, it is inconclusive whether the complementarity between modes varies with distance to rail transit. A second specification testing the relationship between transit and the portion of ridehail usage unexplained by demographics and land uses suggests that this association could result from individual preferences rather than the modes themselves being complementary. Further, ridehail trips peak at different hours than transit trips even among users of both modes, suggesting that the two modes serve different types of trips rather than ridehailing solving the transit first/last-mile problem
