Transit Systems and Impacts of Shared Mobility
Introduction to Shared Mobility
Across the country, local governments
face transformation of the way Americans move about cities. From bikeshare to
ridesourcing, utilization of shared-use modes has grown dramatically in just
five years. As the private sector offers increasingly innovative services,
municipal governments and transit agencies must decide how and when to
regulate, support and tax new services in a consistent manner that benefits the
public interest. Critically, they must
grapple with what these new options portend for conventional fixed-route
transit.
Though often operated by for-profit
companies, these new transportation options have the potential to offer an
array of transportation options that, together with mass transit and other
traditional forms of travel, could make urban car ownership less necessary than
ever before. However, policy makers have yet to comprehensively take advantage
of the proliferation of shared-use services and define their roles in 21st
Century urban transportation systems. This report, a collaboration between
TransitCenter, Sam Schwartz Engineering and the Shared-Use Mobility Center,
identifies important gaps in current approaches toward shared-use mobility, and
early initiatives that have begun to chart beneficial synergies between old
urban transportation systems and new.
To organize these issues and
examples, we offer a three-part framework that can allow policy makers and
transportation managers to regain leadership and initiative in defining
transportation priorities and improving mobility in their cities.
Better understand the
twenty-first century transportation marketplace.
Current gaps in institutional knowledge are substantial. In all but a few cities, neither municipal governments nor transit agencies know who takes advantage of shared-use options, why they do so, or where they travel. Yet many transit providers and regulators also could know more about who does and does not ride the public transportation systems they manage. Open data policies and regular performance analyses across the gamut of transportation modes and agencies are the surest paths to gaining and increasing such knowledge, and will provide sound foundations for planning and regulation.
Integrate city and transit agency planning, regulation and other actions that affect transportation markets and systems.
City governments and transit agencies rarely work together closely enough to produce optimal transportation performance. Such disconnectedness could lead to increasingly unanticipated outcomes as shared-use services proliferate. Today’s rapid changes in transportation are an imperative to better coordinate and cooperate in defining priorities, targeting investment and planning reforms. Critical areas are institutional arrangements to build in regular collaboration, exploiting technology to make transportation information and payment seamless across various forms of transportation and the intersection of street design and transportation services.
Launch immediate
policy initiatives and pilot programs to find synergies and uncover needed
institutional and policy reforms.
Integration cannot wait for perfect data, or the perfect plan. Experiment with bids that allow new providers to compete for existing contract services such as paratransit and vanpools, and adapt regulatory and tax structures so the playing field is leveled between new and old private transportation providers.
