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Uber and Lyft admit they're making city traffic worse
Uber and Lyft may be competitors but as the two major ridesharing companies, they also have a lot in common -- including the challenges they face. To better understand their role in city traffic patterns, the companies jointly sponsored a study to determine their combined vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in six key cities. In a surprising twist, the results got Uber to admit that ridesharing companies, or transportation network companies (TNCs), do in fact contribute to congestion.
"The research shows that despite tremendous growth over the past decade, TNC use still pales in comparison to all other traffic, and although TNCs are likely contributing to an increase in congestion, its scale is dwarfed by that of private cars and commercial traffic," Chris Pangilinan, Uber's Head of Global Policy for Public Transportation, wrote in a blog post.
The study, conducted by Fehr & Peers, looked at Uber and Lyft trips in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC. In San Francisco County, Uber and Lyft were responsible for 13.4 percent of all VMT. In Boston, they accounted for eight percent, and in Washington, DC they represent 7.2 percent of vehicle-miles. Just over half of those miles (54 to 62 percent) were spent actually driving a passenger.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday August 08 2019, @07:05PM (2 children)
This could be a deceptive way of saying "look we account for 10% of all traffic you should invest/hire us" without actually claiming that's the purpose.
This study shows Uber and Lyft contribute to traffic. But of course they do! They're not like, ghosts that pass through everything and interact with nobody.
It does not show, I think from what I have been able to find, if they are affecting the total amount of congestion. Unless there's some data they aren't sharing, which if they are increasing congestion overall I assume they would not share. We'd need some pre/post-Uber/Lyft measures of congestion to compare I would think to determine this. Just showing a percentage of their current contribution to congestion doesn't help anything except their advertisements to clients/investors as far as I'm aware.
Disclaimer: I could be wrong here, I might have been looking at the wrong data, I didn't spend a lot of time researching this and relied way too much on press summaries so take this with a grain of salt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 08 2019, @07:17PM (1 child)
Just over half of those miles (54 to 62 percent) were spent actually driving a passenger.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 08 2019, @09:43PM
So the "parking lot" where cars waiting for use has been shifted from being stored in a lot, engine off, to being stored in lanes of moving traffic, engine on.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]