The effects of ride-hailing services on bus ridership in a medium-sized urban area using micro-level data: Evidence from the Lane Transit District

Nicole S. Ngo, Thomas Götschi and Benjamin Y. Clark

Transport Policy, 2021, vol. 105, issue C, 44-53

Abstract: Most of the current literature on transportation network companies (TNCs) or ride-hailing services (e.g., Uber, Lyft) has focused on major metropolitan areas, though TNCs are currently extending their services to smaller cities. This point is particularly salient when examining their impacts on alternative transportation modes, such as public transit which operates very differently in small or medium-sized cities (e.g., less frequent services, shorter routes). This study is the first to use micro-level public transit data to examine the effects of Uber on bus ridership in a medium-sized urban area. Uber entered the neighboring cities of Eugene and Springfield, Oregon on July 23, 2014, but abruptly stopped operating on April 5, 2015 after being sued by the City of Eugene. Consequently, this study leverages a natural experiment since the period during which Uber was active is plausibly exogenous to other factors that affect bus ridership. Results show that when Uber operated in treatment cities, bus ridership reduced by 5.4 percent (p < 0.01) relative to control cities and when Uber was not active, though the magnitude of these reductions varied within and across days, as well as across neighborhoods. Interestingly, our results also suggest that even after Uber exited, these reductions in bus ridership persisted. Results highlight the importance of utilizing micro-level bus data and have important policy implications for how smaller cities could stem possible reductions in public transit after TNCs enter the market.

Keywords: Transportation network companies; Public transit; Ride-hailing services; Ride-sourcing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X21000536
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:trapol:v:105:y:2021:i:c:p:44-53

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.02.012

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Policy is currently edited by Y. Hayashi

More articles in Transport Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().