The Role of Transit, Shared Modes, and Public Policy in the New Mobility Landscape (2021) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 5-26
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From page 5... ...
Ridehailing companies such as Uber and Lyft, micromobility providers of shared bikes and e-scooters, carsharing companies, and microtransit providers have been growing remarkably fast because of the convenience and services they offer. Smartphones in the hands of more than three-quarters of Americans as of 20191 made these options possible through apps that simplify the process of navigating across space, choosing the mode or modes that minimize time and cost, and making the payments required.2 While the use and availability of these services have been dramatically affected by the outbreak of COVID-19, their introduction and proliferation over the past 10 or more years has led to a more robust landscape of travel options.
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In response, it commissioned this study of the potential for more coordination and integration of shared mobility and transit services and policy options for furthering such an outcome. Specifically, the TRB Executive Committee charged the committee for this study as follows: The study committee will consider the role of new and expanding shared mobility options, such as ridehailing, taxis, carsharing, bikesharing, scootersharing, and microtransit, in the provision of transportation services as part of regional transportation systems, and specifically the relationship to and impact of these services on existing public transit.
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Shared Mobility Services This section provides brief overviews of the main shared mobility services, with a more complete discussion in Chapter 2 of the past impacts of shared mobility and pilot efforts of public transit agencies to coordinate and collaborate with these providers. Even as this report was being written and the impacts of the pandemic were still unfolding, shared mobility providers, the marketplaces in which they operate and compete, and the policies and regulations that apply to them were changing rapidly.
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2016b. Shared Mobility and Guiding Principles, Appendix A, Table 6.
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This service model took off in 2017 when several private companies began placing dockless bikes in public spaces without permission, which resulted in a sharp increase in dockless bike availability and use accompanied with sharp reactions in some cities, including impounding bikes and fining private operators.13 Many dockless bike providers subsequently pulled out of cities in which they were banned or because of the cost of city permits and meeting their requirements. By 2018, after about 8 years of bikeshare availability, roughly 13 percent of the population of 11 large U.S.
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Cities' reactions varied from outright banning and impoundment of dockless bikes and e-scooters, to allowing unregulated operation of private providers, to several pilot projects in major metropolitan areas.18 By the end of 2019, more than twice as many trips had been taken that year by e-scooters than by station-based bikesharing.19 E-bikes, mostly available in dockless systems, had also become popular, reaching 10 million trips in 2019. The convenience offered by bikesharing and scootersharing may be able to reduce SOV trips by providing first/last mile connections to public transportation.20 They can also substitute for public transportation trips, as discussed in Chapter 2.
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As also described in Chapter 2, transit agencies have begun to partner, formally and informally, with ridehailing companies to provide first/last mile connections to/from transit, replace some paratransit26 trips for disadvantaged travelers, and enhance service in areas too lightly populated to support regular fixedroute bus service.27 Taxis The taxi, sedan, and limousine industries provide precursor equivalents of today's ridehailing trips, and had done so for decades before the technologies employed by ridehailing companies greatly simplified and expedited the process of hailing and paying for rides. The complex "for-hire" industry, 22 Schaller, B
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Total taxi ridership by the end of 2018 was estimated to be less than half of its peak volume in 2012.29 In major cities such as New York and Chicago, taxi trips have fallen steadily since the rapid growth of ridehailing.30 The traditional customers of taxis have long had a pronounced bimodal distribution: in 2009, households with annual incomes below $25,000 accounted for 41 percent of taxi trips and households with incomes above $100,000 accounted for 33 percent.31 For households lacking automobiles and credit cards, taxis have been an important source of mobility due to their acceptance of cash payment. Transit agencies and social services agencies have routinely contracted with taxi providers to serve carless, low-income households and individuals who are unable to drive.
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At the time of this writing, many microtransit pilot projects are under way by public transit agencies that are testing out potential applications of this service, particularly in suburban areas difficult to serve effectively and affordably with fixed-route transit, as described in Chapter 2.35 Other Private Shared Modes A variety of private companies facilitate urban transportation in several different ways.36 For example, formal and informal jitneys (dollar vans) support commute trips for residents of low-income urban neighborhoods of Miami, New York, and San Francisco; employers run private shuttles from their locations to transit stops and from urban residential areas to their suburban locations; and transit agencies contract with private companies (paratransit operators)
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. For those readers unfamiliar with regional transportation systems, this section provides background and context on regions; modal preferences across regions; and the variety of transportation agencies and governments involved in providing, managing, and regulating transportation services at the regional scale in the United States.
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In the center cities in these urbanized areas, the differences are even greater. The population density of New York City is 28,000 people per square mile, more than five times denser than its urbanized area, compared with Phoenix's population density of 3,100, which is only slightly denser than its entire urbanized area.44 Thus, as this report explores the role of shared modes and transit in serving social goals such as sustainability, it is important to bear in mind that even among the nation's largest urbanized areas there will be considerable variation in the potential for shared mobility and transit services to affect the number and scale of auto trips and emissions at the regional scale in pursuit of sustainability goals.
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16 THE ROLE OF TRANSIT, SHARED MODES, AND PUBLIC POLICY TABLE 1-1 Urbanized Areas with the Most Transit (ranked by total annual transit trips) Rank Urbanized Area Population in 2018 Population per Square Mile Unlinked Transit Trips Annual Trips per Capita 1 New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT 18,776,233 5,443 4,176,848 222 2 Chicago, IL-IN 8,636,309 3,538 588,902 68 3 Los Angeles-Long BeachAnaheim, CA 12,616,501 7,260 578,159 46 4 Washington, DC-VA-MD 5,051,789 3,821 420,060 83 5 San Francisco-Oakland, CA 3,565,427 6,808 414,920 116 6 Boston, MA-NH-RI 4,475,825 2,389 392,622 88 7 Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD 5,538,175 2,795 366,970 66 8 Seattle, WA 3,513,326 3,480 215,974 61 9 Miami, FL 6,107,242 4,970 136,055 22 10 Atlanta, GA 5,098,403 1,927 133,277 26 11 Portland, OR-WA 2,075,505 3,958 112,466 54 12 San Diego, CA 3,189,835 4,349 100,582 32 13 Baltimore, MD 2,278,976 3,179 98,684 43 14 Minneapolis-St.
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The governance of regional transportation systems is fragmented, but not always in the same way across states: the legal authorities and institutional arrangements among highway and transit agencies and multiple city and county jurisdictions within a region vary substantially. 45 National Research Council.
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Public Transit Agencies Within Regions A small number of states, such as Maryland and New Jersey, provide systems that operate bus and rail systems offering statewide service. A few very large metropolitan areas, such as those including the cities of Denver, Las Vegas, and Philadelphia, have single regional public transportation agencies that provide all, or most, fixed-route transit within their regions.50 Other large regions, such as the Washington, DC, metro area, have a single regional rail metro system and a regional bus system that focuses on major routes, but counties outside of the District of Columbia operate their own independent bus systems as well.
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City and Local Transportation Agencies Unless a state or county route runs through a local government's jurisdiction, the local government will be responsible for roadway operation and regulation that affect the flow of both personal vehicles and transit buses. The largest cities and urbanized counties have departments of transportation with scopes of responsibilities and scale that are comparable to those of some state DOTs.
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TRANSIT AGENCY HETEROGENEITY AND RIDERSHIP Public transportation agencies in the United States are as varied as the metropolitan and rural areas in which they operate. At one extreme, the Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York City alone accounts for almost one-third of all trips by transit, with the nine next largest agencies accounting for an additional 30 percent.52 At the other extreme are thousands of small systems providing bus and paratransit services in small towns and rural areas.
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Transit agencies have a growing interest in collaborating with shared mobility providers in part to serve broad social goals but also because of concerns about declining transit ridership. National transit ridership (all modes)
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These ridership declines were occurring even as total revenue miles of service increased (by bus transit since 2012 and by rail transit since 1996)
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In looking toward the future and in response to its Statement of Task, the committee views mobility management as a promising framework within which to consider "the role transit agencies and other entities could play in managing and otherwise furthering the new mobility landscape" as required by the committee's Statement of Task. The mobility management concept long predates smartphones and travel apps, and was conceived of as a service for matching travelers with suppliers via a clearinghouse by a broker or aggregator.58 In the United States, it was applied by transit agencies to provide populations with special needs, such as people with disabilities, senior citizens who cannot walk easily to transit stops, and those with low incomes, with service by modes appropriate to their circumstances.
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It draws on recent scholarly literature about shared modes and their impacts on transit and case studies of various forms of public transportation coordination with shared mobility providers reported in academic journals and conference papers and recent Transit Cooperative Research Program and related reports. 60 Jittrapirom, P., et al.
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In doing so, the chapter draws on the insights gained from the participation of the committee chair and study director in an international study tour organized by APTA that investigated public transit's role in MaaS development in Austrian, Finnish, and German cities.62 The chapter also explains and compares the USDOT's MOD Operational Concept and the committee's concept of mobility management. Both of these conceptualizations integrate MaaS, or MaaS-like user interfaces, with public policies and management of transit and highway infrastructure and services.
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26 THE ROLE OF TRANSIT, SHARED MODES, AND PUBLIC POLICY potential efficacy of implementing individual components of the mobility management framework. Appendix A provides biographical statements of the committee members responsible for this report.
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