The short-term impact of congestion taxes on ridesourcing demand and traffic congestion: Evidence from Chicago

Yuan Liang, Bingjie Yu, Xiaojian Zhang, Yi Lu and Linchuan Yang

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2023, vol. 172, issue C

Abstract: Ridesourcing is popular in many cities. Despite its theoretical benefits, a large body of studies have claimed that ridesourcing also brings negative externalities (e.g., inducing trips and aggravating traffic congestion). Therefore, many cities are planning to enact or have already enacted policies to regulate its use. However, these policies’ effectiveness or impact on ridesourcing demand and traffic congestion is uncertain. To this end, this study applies difference-in-differences (i.e., a regression-based causal inference approach) to empirically evaluate the effects of the congestion tax policy on ridesourcing demand and traffic congestion in Chicago. It shows that this congestion tax policy significantly curtails overall ridesourcing demand but marginally alleviates traffic congestion. The results are robust to the choice of time windows and data sets, additional control variables, alternative model specifications, alternative control groups, and alternative modeling approaches (i.e., regression discontinuity in time). Moreover, considerable heterogeneity exists. For example, the policy notably reduces ridesourcing demand with short travel distances, but such an impact is gradually attenuated as the distance increases.

Keywords: Transportation network company; Ridesourcing; Ride-hailing; Congestion tax; Regulation; Traffic congestion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2023.103661

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