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New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

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Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#371

Post by ant6n »

SilasX wrote: post #346
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The one fifth of trips that wouldn't exist seems like a positive to society... But it does still mean more traffic.

It may not mean the traffic we actually care about. If vehicle miles increase at 3am, when no road is at capacity, there is virtually no externality or negative impact buses. If people are mainly using Uber/Lyft for those mid-late evening barhopping trips, then the same logic basically applies -- those aren't the times when roads are near capacity. It would mainly be a problem if they're using it near rush hours, whe…

Capacity isn't the only issue of transportation. There are plenty of negative externalities besides this, like emissions, pollution, noise. Reducing VMT and converting it to transit use would be beneficial at any time of day.

On the other hand, off-peak capacity on transit is often near free. The line is built anyway, or the services have to be provided anyway, or the shifts are 8 hours anyway, so providing extra off-peak trips is often not a big strain.

If the displaced trips are done by people who usually don't take transit, it means they'll pay more expensive fares (single tickets), which could even be cost-neutral wrt to subsidies. At the same time, those trips can get drivers used to the idea of taking transit, possibly encouraging them to take more transit in the future.

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#372

Post by abalone »

dragonwriter wrote: post #317
curun1r wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My interpretation of his comment was that drunk driving was basically required if you wanted to go out and drink. Public transportation in LA didn't work and cabs were too expensive for people who wanted to go out more than once a month. So well-intentioned people still drove drunk because the alternative was forgoing a social life. Now, with ride sharing, people that care can avoid drunk driving. But some people wil…

> My interpretation of his comment was that drunk driving was basically required if you wanted to go out and drink. That's a reasonable interpretation, though even so interpreted it's quite wrong. You can go out and drink and never be legally drunk, much less not drive drunk. “Go out and drink” is quite different from “go out and drink heavily and then drive immediately”.

That’s mostly incorrect. Most men will be over the limit if they have more than one drink per hour.[1] For most women it’s even less. This is widely misunderstood but even moderate drinking often puts you over the limit.

[1] https://www.dmv.org/ca-california/automotive-law/dui.php

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#373

Post by Tehnix »

ekianjo wrote: post #344
netsharc wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should've done this study in a European city with great public transport which also has Uber, like Munich or Berlin.

"Great public transport" means what exactly? Even in Japan which is widely recognized as one of the countries with excellent public transport, trains and buses stop at night (and not too late either), so if you are going out, and coming back after midnight it's either your car or a very expensive taxi. Is Munich/Berlin any different?

Man I was annoyed with that when I was in Japan. It's horrible, you either stay out until 5 in the morning when they start again or take an insanely expensive taxi.

In contrast, in Copenhagen there are always night busses that leave at least once an hour, and the trains also go to fairly late and start early again. There's always some way to get home, which is immensely helpful when you're out drinking. Now that's what I call great public transport.

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#374

Post by goialoq »

jdavis703 wrote: post #300
noobermin wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the answer is city and state governments need to get serious about public transit. Every other major countries' cities invest in their public transit, it's just the city governments here in the US treat it like any public service, a barebones skeleton of a safety net for the poor that politicians target for cuts.

The median Caltrain rider makes $129,000 [0]. Unless a six figure income is considered poor, there's no way this is a safety net for the poor. 0: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...

That's amazing. Caltrain is the "tech" industry commute option. That doc says that "minority" (non-white) ridership share is growing, but it's actually Asian/Indian growing and black/hispanic shrinking.

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#375

Post by goialoq »

colechristensen wrote: post #214
sliverstorm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the challenge is all of the invisible costs of cars. Repairs & maintenance & tires are usually just as much as gas, but nobody thinks about that. Road maintenance for the city is stupid expensive, parking lots are too. But it's all magicked behind the curtain. Whereas, with public transit, far more of the costs are represented by the fare.

For me, over the last 80,000 miles, about 85% of the operating costs were gas. I did think about that, and I have. I briefly considered getting rid of my car to eliminate the cost of insurance and renting a parking space while working from home. It was at best break even to match my then current behavior with public transit and taxi-equivalents. It seems about 40% of Caltrain is not covered by fares. It's hard to fin…

The most expensive Caltrain pass is $5K/yr total cost of ownership, especially is parking is unsubsidized.

http://www.caltrain.com/Fares/farechart.html

https://www.edmunds.com/toyota/corolla/2017/st-401668011/cos...

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#376

Post by callalex »

bartread wrote: post #40
yardie wrote: post #18

I’m a big proponent of mass transit and when it’s available I use it if I can. But I can get Lyft door to door for just $1-2 more than a bus or train. If mass transit wants to keep with rideshare and livery they need to: expand routes, increase availability, update their equipment. When I was a kid I knew how to read a bus schedule and train map to plan my trip. Now, there is an entire generation of kids in school an…

You make a good point here, and mass transit has done the square root of bugger all to improve accessibility for a new generation. For example: I live in the countryside and want to get a bus into town. Fair enough but sometimes the buses run late, and sometimes they run really late - like half an hour plus. I often don't have that kind of time to waste, especially not if it means standing or sitting around in the ra…

Many modern metro areas of the US have done an _excellent_ job of integrating with Google Maps and Apple Maps transit directions. This means that you just need to ask your phone for help from point A to point B, and they all have up-to-date tracking based arrival information to nicely orchestrate layovers for you, and do the math for you re: waiting for express lines vs taking more frequent local lines. Most people in my generation have never needed to read transit timetables and correlate them between bus service, train service, etc. they just let their phones do the work for them.

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#377

Post by goialoq »

colechristensen wrote: post #232
nhaehnle wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that there are a lot of fixed cost overheads, right? Surely the cost per mile from SFO to LAX is already much higher than what you quoted for SFO to JFK, and it's reasonable if local transit is even more expensive per distance.

28.6¢ SFO to LAX A train is something like 10 times more fuel efficient per passenger. It's a much less complicated machine, and carries something like 10 times as many passengers per vehicle. It's not reasonable that a train is more expensive. It doesn't have to accelerate to 550 mph 6 miles up. Piloting it doesn't require years and years of training. Compare SFO to your local caltrain station and tell me which one…

And how much from SFO to San Francisco city, which is a meaningful comparison? And don't forget the cost of getting to and from the runway.

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#378

Post by dbaupp »

kurthr wrote: post #324
djrogers wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> parking spaces often cost $10,000+ apiece to build, excluding any land cost I don’t buy that for a second - even in extremely expensive areas like the Bay Area, concrete is less than $20/sq ft poured (ie including all costs), and most parking lots I see around here are blacktop which is even cheaper....

Well, anywhere that is popular enough to need parking (e.g. downtown commercial) is going to be more expensive than a standard house lot in SillyValley. A 5000sqft lot is easily $1M and probably more so you're going to need $200/sqft just for land. The minimum size for a compact parking space is 8x16 and area usage isn't better than 50% in a parking lot so you're at 256sqft before you start building anything... that'…

(You missed a zero: 8×16×2×200 = $51k.)

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#379

Post by goialoq »

smsm42 wrote: post #101
justboxing wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> expand routes, increase availability, update their equipment. ... and be faster . The SFMTA in San Francisco , at an average travel speed of 5 miles / hour. Is only slightly faster than brisk walking. Also, from the downtown FiDi out 2 miles in every direction, the Bus has a bus stop at Every block. Yes, every block.

This is a basic contradiction which I am not sure is solvable. If the stops are too far away, you (or somebody for whom walking is harder, like older people, less physically fit people, etc.) won't be able to use it. If stops are too close, getting through them takes a lot of time. I know there is a body of work that tries to find optimal setup for such cases, but I'm not sure it's possible to make everybody happy he…

If we kicked cars out of the city, the buses would be less delayed, and more passengers would me an more frequent routes.

Re: New Research on How Ride-Hailing Impacts Travel Behavior

#380

Post by goialoq »

bartread wrote: post #40
yardie wrote: post #18

I’m a big proponent of mass transit and when it’s available I use it if I can. But I can get Lyft door to door for just $1-2 more than a bus or train. If mass transit wants to keep with rideshare and livery they need to: expand routes, increase availability, update their equipment. When I was a kid I knew how to read a bus schedule and train map to plan my trip. Now, there is an entire generation of kids in school an…

You make a good point here, and mass transit has done the square root of bugger all to improve accessibility for a new generation. For example: I live in the countryside and want to get a bus into town. Fair enough but sometimes the buses run late, and sometimes they run really late - like half an hour plus. I often don't have that kind of time to waste, especially not if it means standing or sitting around in the ra…

> I live in the countryside

Mass transit isn't for you. That's fine.

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