Objective: To understand the usage and potential impacts of ride-hailing services in the Metro Vancouver Region
Collaborator(s): TransLink
Project period: 2021-2023

I led the development and administration of an online survey, the design of stated preference experiments, the analysis of survey responses, and the development of technical reports, presentations, and journal articles.

The goals of the project were to investigate the potential impacts of ride-hailing services (which were introduced to the region in January 2020) and to explore the characteristics of ride-hailing users and ride-hailing trips.

The results suggest that ride-hailing use is motivated by convenience and travel time savings and that ride-hailing trips would have been made using taxis, private vehicles, and public transit if ride-hailing services were not available. Additionally, the findings of the project suggest that the introduction of shared ride-hailing services (i.e., services that offer customers a discounted fare in exchange for the potential to share the vehicle with other customers) could attract demand from public transit and active modes. Finally, persons with disabilities were found to be more likely to be ride-hailing users and more likely to be frequent ride-hailing users compared to the general population.

The results of this project will support the development of policies to increase access to the benefits offered by ride-hailing services while also addressing the negative externalities associated with these services.