While they still won’t be a panacea to solving all the country’s traffic problems, partnerships between transit agencies and Uber and Lyft-type services should be higher on the priority list for transit agencies and ride-hail companies.
Nobody seems to be able to explain why this first-mile/last-mile avenue isn’t being explored in Washington D.C., but some trials in other places throughout the U.S. look like they might be working well.
Martin Di Caro reports:
The D.C. region’s transit system has no formal partnerships with tech-driven, personal transport apps such as Uber or Lyft, the kind of innovative measures transit agencies in other U.S. cities are trying.
Such partnerships are designed to build a complimentary relationship between mass transit and on-demand transportation, instead of a solely competitive one; Metro planners say the subway and bus systems have lost some trips to ride-hailing and bike-sharing options over the past several years.
Last December, Metro and Uber were close to reaching their first partnership, but the deal fell through for reasons that still remain unclear.
In remarks to reporters after a WMATA board meeting last week, Metro general manager Paul Wiedefeld declined to explain what happened to the deal. “I am not going to get into specifics,” he said. “We will continue to work with anyone who wants to work with us.”
The issued was raised after Metro board member David Horner implored the system’s leaders to consider a future when mass transit could become irrelevant to most city-dwellers because of the “new realities in the delivery of transportation services to the public.”
With the advent of ride-hailing and, eventually, autonomous vehicles, Horner said Metro risked becoming a Sears Roebuck in an Amazon era unless it starts working with tech companies to direct more people onto trains.
Adie Tomer, a transportation policy expert at the Brookings Institution who has studied the relationship between public transportation and ride-hailing apps, said early results from experiments in other cities are promising, including one by the Philadelphia area’s transit system, SEPTA, last summer.
“There was a fascinating trial of getting folks to long-distance commuter trains, the corollaries to MARC or VRE,” said Tomer. “Instead of driving downtown, we’ll have Uber… bring you to the station and then you can get on the train and ride downtown.”
For 14 weeks in mid-2016, Uber riders who traveled to or from 11 suburban SEPTA rail stations received a 40 percent discount off the cost of their Uber ride. The discount was capped at $10 per ride.
“It was successful to the extent it increased the number of people traveling to/from the 11 selected Regional Rail stations by Uber. However, the availability of data to provide additional information about the pilot results remains limited,” said SEPTA spokeswoman Carla Showell-Lee.
“SEPTA is currently developing a Ridership Growth Strategic Plan and will make determinations about potential future partnerships,” she said.
Recent studies have found ride-hailing services, with their quick response and low fares, have a mixed effect on other modes of transportation. They often replace bus and short subway trips, but help feed commuters onto long-distance rail rides.
Tomer said whether ride-hailing apps will ultimately compliment or compete against public transit systems like WMATA is a tough question to answer definitively right now. It could depend on how many people answer yes to another question.
“Do you have the available disposable income to pay a few extra dollars and get that direct door-to-door service?” Tomer said.
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