Don MacKenzie, of University of Washington, presented Environment, Economy, and Equity: New mobility services and sustainability from 4-5 pm in 290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building on Sept. 22.
Abstract
New mobility services including carsharing and ride-sourcing are growing quickly, but are they providing mobility for all travelers? Who is using these services? For what purposes? And what are they replacing? I will share results from a series of recent studies addressing these questions. Some have used system data gleaned from the car2go and Uber application programming interfaces (APIs) to examine the types of trips served by car2go, and the quality of Uber services across diverse neighborhoods. In another study we used intercept surveys to characterize travelers using UberHOP (a fixed-route, flat-fare service tested by Uber in Seattle in 2016) and their reasons for choosing HOP. Finally, I will share results of a field experiment in Seattle and Boston that tested whether Uber and Lyft drivers discriminated against travelers on the basis of a traveler’s perceived race.