Shared Mobility

The growing number of public transportation agencies partnering with Mobility on Demand (MOD) or Mobility as a Service (MaaS) companies raises the question of what role MOD companies can, should, and currently play in the provision of public transport. In this article, we develop a typology reflecting 62 MOD public-private partnerships (MOD PPPs) in the United States and present lessons learned. We conducted 34 interviews with representatives from four MOD companies and 27 public agencies. The interviews spanned October 2017 to April 2018. The resulting MOD PPP typology consists of four...

App-based ridehailing services such as Uber and Lyft are growing rapidly and serving more trips in large U.S. cities than conventional taxicabs, on which people with disabilities have historically depended. Analyzing the 2017 National Household Travel Survey, we found that adults with disabilities use app-based ridehailing at a much lower rate than adults without disabilities. This is partly because people with disabilities are older, have lower incomes, and live less in larger cities. But even when controlling for these factors, having a disability predicts lower use of app-based...

This research report is the final deliverable for PATH Task Order 6408: “Improving Mobility through Enhanced Transit Services”. The purpose of this task order is to explore alternative methods of providing transit service to areas with low passenger demand density. This report first presents analytical models for determining optimal headway and line spacing for fixed-route, fixed schedule buses, either with fixed stops or allowing buses to stop anywhere along the route. Next, transit taxi services with either fixed or flexible routes that specifically target focused demand patterns are...

A number of research studies have found that ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft have increased the total amount of driving within metropolitan areas. In this study, we examined how the rollout of Uber across the Boston region affected auto use and ownership by analyzing vehicle level data, in contrast to previous research which has relied mostly on aggregate travel measures, questionnaires, or stated-preference surveys. Using vehicle registration and inspection data including odometer readings, we tracked changes to the daily vehicle miles traveled (VMT) of 1.7 million vehicles in...