Transit Systems and Impacts of Shared Mobility

Recommended Policy
Framework:
Lay of the Land

The Lay of the Land:

Cities and Transit Providers Must Understand
the New Urban Transportation Marketplace

From our interviews, a recurring theme was the lack of knowledge some city officials and transit agencies have about the state of urban transportation, which in turn poses a major obstacle to crafting sound transportation policy. This lack of knowledge also leads to unsubstantiated “best” or “worst” case scenarios, ranging from naïve speculation that “now that we have Uber, people don’t need trains” to fears that shared-mobility is entirely to blame for changes in traffic or wage levels that in reality are influenced by a multitude of factors. 

More facts and knowledge are needed. In this case, “knowledge” refers in large part to that pertaining to shared-use providers: how their businesses are structured, who uses them and in what circumstances, and what regulatory policies exist in other cities and countries. In addition, however, the interviews revealed substantial knowledge gaps regarding current users of public transportation--simply, many transit providers and regulators do not know much about who rides mass transit in their cities and why they do so.

  1. Collect, demand, and publish more data
  2. Use learning networks to establish and share best practices and to create predictable operating environments

1. Collect, demand, and publish more data

As former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg famously said, “In God We Trust, all others bring data.” Effective shared-use policy simply cannot be created without data; not just from shared-use providers, but also from cities, transit agencies, transit users, and would-be transit users.  

By routinely conducting surveys on traveler behavior--not just from those who use transit but also from those who choose not to use transit--cities and transit agencies can learn how people take advantage of shared-use options and how those options currently, or could in the future, complement the existing transit network. Agencies that already conduct rider surveys will gain even deeper insights by expanding their surveys to include questions that capture the entire journey, including use of shared options. Purchasing data from independent mobility data companies, such as StreetLight and Teralytics, will complement city and agency-collected data on rider behavior. 

By making data-sharing a prerequisite for private shared-use providers’ ability to operate within their borders, city and state governments will gain a better understanding of the impact of shared-use options on the transit system. Authorizing legislation or regulation should require origins, destinations, duration, distance, a map of the trip, the price paid by the traveler, and the customer’s rating of the driver be provided to the regulating agencies or held in a third party repository for data. Transit agencies that do not have regulatory authority should require data-sharing in any future contractual arrangements between transit agencies and providers.  

Finally, if cities enable the publication of standardized data about transit and shared-mobility use, policymakers and observers will be able to compare trends across modes and cities. This, in turn will create more opportunities for technology developers, and will help shared-use mobility providers better plan their services.

 
Examples

Space/Time Engine

San Francisco’s BART system
recently contracted with Urban Engines to use a proprietary data-collection and
mapping technology called the Space/Time Engine, which provides anonymized
cellular information on commuting habits, bus occupancy, and other far more
granular and comprehensive data than typical surveys.

Quarterly Data Reports

Boston reached an agreement with Uber to provide quarterly data reports that will list the time, distance, and origin/destination of trips. Unfortunately, the last of these will be granular only to the ZIP code level, which may inhibit the city’s ability to incorporate the data into transit plans.

TNC Regulations

São Paulo is in the process of drafting regulations for Uber. The preliminary draft decree from Mayor Fernando Haddad, which just closed its public-comment phase, requires that the company provide the city data on trip origins, destinations, duration, distance, a map of the trip, the price paid by the traveler, and the customer’s rating of the driver. 

Trip Data

In New York City, Uber and
Lyft must provide trip data to the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) of New
York City, in order to operate. The TLC makes the data available to the public
on their website and through Freedom of Information Law requests.

Quarterly Data Reports

Santa Clara’s Valley Transit Authority implemented an “Open Data Policy” which mandates all VTA data be open by default, and sets the agency on a course to release all of it over time, through a dedicated portal. Many agencies have dedicated open data websites, but few have stated commitments to migrate all their data onto such a portal.

2. Use learning networks to establish and share best practices and create predictable operating environments

Just as a lack of data-sharing has stymied progress on shared-use policy, so too has the lack of knowledge of precedent and best practices among cities; simply put, too often the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.  

The solution is to create learning networks among cities to increase knowledge and share model examples of how cities and transit agencies are regulating, collecting data from, contracting with, and implementing other policies regarding shared-use mobility providers.

By creating standards of best practice, cities can ensure predictable environments in which private operators can do business, consistent standards for data, common regulatory frameworks, and ultimately build a body of evidence to inform planning. The venue for this collaboration need not be a new entity.It could be housed within an existing organization, such as the NationalAssociation of City Transportation Officials, the National Association ofRegional Councils, or perhaps even the League of Cities or another localgovernment association.

  Examples

Learning Network

The National Association of City Transportation Officials established a learning network for city transportation officials to share best practices in multimodal street infrastructure. NACTO developed practitioner guides for bicycle-friendly street design and transit-friendly street design. The guides are increasingly adopted by cities and states across the country. An expansion of such a guide to include shared-use best practices can further aid cities and agencies in their planning efforts.

Open Data Standard

The North American Bike Share Association is a model for public-private collaboration in developing policies that further both sectors’ goals: the expansion of bike share operation and the provision of more transportation options. Among other efforts, NABSA created a single, national open data standard for bikeshare providers to share information about ridership, and is working with cities to encourage adoption of the standard and facilitate publication of data on bikeshare use.

Next: The Imperative to Integrate

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