Introducing the TLC Factbook, NYC TLC’s New Data Dashboard
Over the past few months, our data team has been working on creating the TLC Factbook, a living, interactive dashboard that visualizes trip data collected by TLC. This ever-expanding dashboard is updated with the latest data every month, offering insights categorized into two sections, Metrics and Maps. As the most active for-hire transportation regulatory agency in the world, TLC has oversight of a key component of New York City’s transportation network, including taxis and for-hire vehicles like Lyft, Uber, black cars, and liveries. The TLC Factbook allows users to visualize and analyze TLC data without the technical skills needed to work with raw datasets. We are excited to release this tool and give you a glimpse of TLC’s new data dashboard!
Before we dive into the dashboard, here’s a quick overview of commonly used TLC terms:
About the Industry
- Yellow Taxis: Also known as taxicabs or medallion taxis. The only vehicle that can perform both street hail and prearranged trips anywhere in the city.
- Green Cabs: Also known as Street Hail Liveries (SHLs) and boro taxis. Provide a mix of prearranged and street hail service everywhere in the city except the airports and Manhattan south of West 110th St. and East 96th St.
- For-Hire Vehicles (FHVs): Vehicles that perform trips by prearrangement, not street hails. Includes black cars, livery vehicles, and luxury limousines. Can be dispatched by any for-hire vehicle base, including high-volume for-hire services.
– ‘FHV - Other’ refers to black cars, liveries, and luxury limousines. - High-Volume For-Hire Services (FHV - High Volume): For-hire vehicle bases that dispatch more than 10,000 trips per day to any type of for-hire vehicle. Lyft and Uber are the two bases currently licensed under this category.
About the Data
- Working Drivers: Drivers who completed at least one trip in the given month for that sector.
- Working Vehicles: Vehicles that completed at least one trip in the given month for that sector.
- Drop-off Count: Number of rides that ended in the selected region.
- Pickup Count: Number of rides that originated in the selected region.
Metrics in Focus: Navigating Insights and Trends
The Metrics tab includes both industry trends over time and snapshots of important metrics from the most recent month. We’ve included a glossary of the commonly used TLC terms from above in the final page of this tab. The interactive nature of the pages in the Metrics tab allows for users to hover over charts to view precise numbers and isolate charts for each industry independently — simply click on the industry you want to view and click the same industry again to view all industries together.
Now let’s delve into the key components:
- Trip Data
The main graphic displays monthly trip count by industry from 2015 to present. Trip count is the one of the main metrics that TLC uses to monitor the growth and activity in the industries we regulate. Since 2015, the for-hire transportation landscape has changed drastically. Yellow Taxis, for example, dominated for years before the introduction of high-volume services such as Lyft and Uber. They now only account for a small percentage of the 20+ million trips each month.
In addition to monthly trip counts, trip volume relative to the pre-pandemic level is displayed on the bottom right to help us monitor the recovery of industries from the COVID-19 pandemic. We define the pre-pandemic level as January 2020 trip volume. Using August 2023 data as an example, we see that FHV - High Volume has recovered the most, with August 2023 trip volume 89.08% of the pre-pandemic level, while Green Cab has recovered the least, with August 2023 trip volume only 13.54% of the pre-pandemic level.
Finally, the Trip Data page provides a snapshot of the most recent month’s data with metrics such as overall pre-pandemic trip volume, number of average trips per minute, total number of trips completed and the percentage of drop-offs that were in NYC.
2. Working Driver and Vehicle Count
The Working Driver and Vehicle Count page visually displays working driver and vehicle counts by month and industry to track growth and activity in each industry. Note that TLC drivers can do trips for multiple sectors or FHV bases. For example, a driver may do some trips for a High-Volume base and some trips for a smaller base categorized under FHV - Other. As a result, the driver and vehicle numbers by sector should not be added for a total count, as that would lead to double counting.
Let’s consider the FHV - High Volume industry as an example. The working driver and vehicle counts by month grew more than six-fold from January 2015 to mid-2019 and quickly overtook the working driver and vehicle counts for all other industries. As of August 2023, 80,823 drivers and 77,520 vehicles completed at least one FHV - High Volume trip, 15,453 drivers and 14,380 vehicles completed at least one FHV - Other trip, 886 drivers and 854 vehicles completed at least one Green Cab trip, and 11,662 drivers and 8,345 vehicles completed at least one Yellow Taxi trip.
3. FHV - High Volume
The FHV - High Volume page provides insights into the largest industry, High-Volume For-Hire Services. Currently, Lyft and Uber are the only two bases licensed in this category.
The utilization rate, the percentage of time that high-volume drivers are transporting passengers, is a metric unique to the FHV - High Volume industry. TLC uses the utilization rate in driver minimum pay formulas to incentivize companies to utilize their driver pool more efficiently. It is calculated by dividing the time spent with a passenger by the total time that drivers are logged into the app, including time waiting for a dispatch, time en route to pick up a passenger, and time with a passenger. The page displays three Year-to-Date (YTD) utilization rate metrics as of the most recent month (August 2023 as of the writing of this post): industrywide (Uber and Lyft) utilization rate (54.8%), Uber’s utilization rate (57.4%), and Lyft’s utilization rate (49.1%). The YTD utilization rate is calculated using data from April 2023 to present. Additionally, the monthly utilization rate is charted for each month starting from April 2023 for the industry, Uber, and Lyft at the bottom right. We can see that Uber’s monthly and year-to-date utilization rate has been consistently higher than Lyft’s, but both have seen decreases in monthly utilization rates since May 2023. Note: TLC utilization rate regulations went into effect in April 2023; thus, utilization rates are only meaningful starting from April 2023.
Finally, the YTD (January 2023 to present) market share by company is displayed on the bottom left. From January 2023 to present, over two-thirds of FHV - High Volume trips were completed through Uber, giving them 72.2% of the High-Volume market, while Lyft’s is 27.8%.
Mapping the Landscape: Visualizing Data in the Maps Tab
The Maps tab visualizes trip record pickups & drop-offs by industry and taxi zone for most recent month. Each map is interactive — zoom in to view taxi zones in greater detail and click on a taxi zone to see details such as borough, taxi zone name, and pickup or drop-off count. Darker taxi zones indicate a greater number of pickups and drop-offs, while lighter colored zones indicate fewer. Feel free to refer to the legend on each map for more precise counts. Let’s consider Yellow Taxi pickups and drop-offs in August 2023 as an example. Pickups and drop-offs were heavily concentrated in Manhattan and LaGuardia and JFK airports, but there were notably more Yellow Taxi drop-offs in the outer boroughs than pickups in the same zones.
The TLC Factbook: Your Window into NYC’s For-Hire Transportation Dynamics
We hope that the new TLC Factbook will help readers like you visualize, analyze, and understand the dynamics of NYC’s for-hire transportation industry. Expect future updates to delve into Green Rides Initiative compliance and driver pay, ensuring that our dashboard evolves with the ever-changing for-hire transportation landscape.
Have any questions, ideas, or recommendations? Email us at research@tlc.nyc.gov. Your insights will be instrumental in our continuous quest for improvement.
