A Philadelphia Rideshare Story: An Investigation of Rideshare’s Impact on Transit

In the last five years, the Philadelphia region’s four main transit modes (buses, subways, trolleys, and regional rail) have seen ridership declines coinciding with the growth of ridesharing services such as Lyft (see figure above). Explanations for this decline vary: some have claimed that ridesharing services make transit more accessible by providing a convenient connection between passengers’ origins/destinations and transit stations while others have suggested that ridesharing services replace transit trips. Because transit funding and service planning are to a large extent predicated on ridership, a lack of understanding of the relationship between transit and ridesharing services hinders planners’ efforts to improve transit service.

In my dissertation, I examine how and where ridesharing services have influenced transit ridership, as well as who uses ridesharing services and why. Through statistical analyses and a survey of ridesharing users in the Philadelphia region, I find that,

1. A quarter of the survey respondents replaced transit with ridesharing services for the surveyed trip. Respondents cite the shorter travel time and wait time of ridesharing services as the most common reasons for choosing ridesharing over transit. While ridesharing services have contributed to ridership loss for all four transit modes, the extents of the declines vary across modes. Frequent and reliable transit services such as subways appear to be more resilient to ridership loss amid the growing popularity of ridesharing services.
2. Higher-ridership, more cost-effective bus routes are as prone to ridership declines as less cost-effective routes. Neighborhoods with higher poverty levels are associated with bigger ridership declines after the entry of ridesharing services.
3. Shortening overall transit travel time could be more effective in attracting ridesharing customers to transit than reducing transit fares alone (these findings were published in the Journal of the American Planning Association).
4. Younger and lower-income survey respondents use ridesharing services more than older and higher-income respondents.
5. Female survey respondents are more likely to choose ridesharing services over transit and have greater concerns about personal safety than male respondents when choosing travel modes.

My findings support the argument that ridesharing services are replacing transit trips. My findings on the relationship between transit service factors and passengers’ willingness to choose transit over ridesharing inform transit agencies’ strategies to make transit more attractive to ridesharing users.

Xiaoxia Dong is a 2020 Doctoral Recipient in the Department of City and Regional Planning, Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

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