Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
advances.sciencemag.org
Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
1–10 of 81 posts
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#2Obviously. They are making it worse by exactly the number of trips that would otherwise have been done by transit, bike, walking or not at all.
edit: or now scooters
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#3Anytime there is no passenger in the vehicle, it's an extra vehicle on the road. Normally, our cars don't continue to drive around after we've arrived at our destination.
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#4Yes, there are cars that are performing transport and some that are part of traffic that are waiting to be hailed and not performing transport - those are certainty congesting. There is also the effect of rideshare drivers coming from different areas and thus not knowing the city they are in. Reliance on GPS/map apps helps but there will still be “I don’t know where I am going and am not accustomed to city traffic” effect that compounds the others drivers who exhibit that behavior. I’m sue we’ve seen the effect of a single driver desperately trying to cross lanes to make their turn, scale that up.
Cities should really get this data from the companies to figure this out. That should be a necessity for operation in the city.
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#5Obviously. They are making it worse by exactly the number of trips that would otherwise have been done by transit, bike, walking or not at all. edit: or now scooters
Actually, you take that number, PLUS the number of empty Uber cars, PLUS the number of empty taxis that would not have been empty if there wasn't Uber...
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#6Anytime there is no passenger in the vehicle, it's an extra vehicle on the road. Normally, our cars don't continue to drive around after we've arrived at our destination.
Your San Francisco parking experience is very different from mine.
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#7Alternative: More Parking
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#8Yes, there are cars that are performing transport and some that are part of traffic that are waiting to be hailed and not performing transport - those are certainty congesting. There is also the effect of rideshare drivers coming from different areas and thus not knowing the city they are in. Reliance on GPS/map apps helps but there will still be “I don’t know where I am going and am not accustomed to city traffic” e…
Also drivers circle a block every time they need to add a passenger. The one way streets may make left turns safer, but they increase the time a car has to be on the road in any given area.
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#9Obviously. They are making it worse by exactly the number of trips that would otherwise have been done by transit, bike, walking or not at all. edit: or now scooters
I don't think it is so simple. Eg: people now taking extra trips because it is easy and cheap to do so. Eg: "I'll just Uber the 6 blocks to my next shopping spot" instead of walking. This happens in my friend group all the time. Plus people traveling to the city at all BECAUSE Uber makes intracity travel easy. Eg: I live in the East Bay and hate driving within the city, but am happy to be escorted around it on a whim but would have otherwise stayed more local.
Re: Do transportation network companies decrease or increase congestion?
#10Obviously. They are making it worse by exactly the number of trips that would otherwise have been done by transit, bike, walking or not at all. edit: or now scooters
Clearly a trip that is taken has utility to the person taking the trip, so the "not at all" outcome is a bad one.
People will use the best option they have out of the ones available to them. Transit is usually faster than Uber for trips to downtown or the Mission, but try getting to Miraloma with it.