Impact of Ride-Sourcing Services on Travel Habits and Transportation Planning

The use of app-based, on-demand ride-sourcing services has spread rapidly and become more and more important in urban transport. Companies such as Uber and Lyft may provide better service with less waiting time and higher vehicle occupancy when compared to traditional transportation services such as private auto, public transit and taxis. This new type of transportation service is defined as ride-sourcing. This increase in the ride-sourcing availability, due to the introduction of Uber and Lyft, may impact travel habits and change the local, regional and national travel demand. The research compared the users’ differences in travel characteristics between traditional transportation services and new ride-sourcing services. This comparison was be done by conducting a survey in the Pittsburgh region to determine users’ attitude and travel habits when using ride-sourcing services. The results of the survey were used to compare to the travel characteristics of ride-source users to established travel behavior data and then determine how the impact of ride-sourcing on travel habits may be incorporated into the transportation planning process. \ud The findings indicate that ride-sourcing users are generally younger than the typical traveler, the service is used by a higher percentage of males and females. Social and recreational trips are the predominant type of trips used for ride-sourcing followed by work trips, trip lengths are shorter for all types of trips when compared to typical trip makers and vehicle occupancy rates are generally higher for ride-sourcing trips. Ride sourcing users generate more trips than typical traveler’s in the Pittsburgh region and the use of taxis and private autos are most impacted by ride sourcing where users’ shift away from these modes. \ud Currently, ride-sourcing is still a relatively small number of daily trips in an urban area. However as populations increase in urban areas and the demand for transportation facilities increases the new type of travel could increase to significant levels. It could be considered as a new transportation mode or categorized in as an auto mode in travel demand models.\u