How Many Lyft Drivers Are on the Road at Once?
It’s easy to spot Lyft’s pink logo on the windshield of passing cars, so one might assume that there are many Lyft drivers actively on the road. But perception is not always reality.
As policymakers debate the impact of rideshare on cities, they often cite the number of registered drivers as evidence that rideshare companies have grown at an unsustainable pace. It is true that thousands of drivers are registered to drive with Lyft in major cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle, but not all of these drivers are on the road at any given time.
So exactly how many Lyft drivers are on the road? Here’s what we found.
What fraction of registered drivers are on the road at a time?
Looking at the number of registered drivers gives an incomplete picture of Lyft’s impact on the road. In New York, an average of 14% of registered drivers are active in any given hour. In other major cities, the fraction is between 5% and 7%. In the graph below, we compare the number of drivers registered with Lyft in each city with the average number of active drivers in an hour in August and September 2018. An active driver is defined as a driver who turns their app on at anytime during that hour.
The large discrepancy between the number of registered drivers and active drivers is not surprising given the flexible nature of ridesharing. Lyft drivers decide when they want to drive and for how long. Nationwide, 91% of Lyft drivers drive fewer than 20 hours a week. There are several reasons this may be the case. A majority of drivers, 66% nationwide, work outside of Lyft (either part-time, full-time, self-employed, or as freelancers), and 5% are full-time students. Another 13% of drivers are currently looking for other employment, which means they likely drive only a few weeks a year.
There are also differences between cities in the fraction of registered drivers who are active. This may be explained by the way cities regulate ridesharing. In New York, for example, Lyft operates as a black car service, requiring drivers to get commercial licenses and plates. The higher start up cost of registering to drive for Lyft in New York likely deters drivers who only want to drive a few hours a week or few weeks in a year. As a result, New York has fewer registered drivers than Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Francisco even though it has the highest number of average active drivers in an hour. We are actively working to lower costs to drivers through service centers that offer discounted maintenance and other measures including transparency on the cost to lease or loan a vehicle and drive with Lyft.
When are Lyft drivers on the road?
The number of active Lyft drivers fluctuates significantly over the course of a week. In New York, the hour with the most average active Lyft drivers is 8 p.m. on Friday. The hour with the fewest average active Lyft drivers is 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
Many of the hours when drivers are most active are outside of traditional rush hours. In New York, 15% of all rides in 2018 took place between 12 a.m. and 5 a.m. We can see the relationship between the hours with the worst traffic and the hours with the most active Lyft drivers below.
The bars display the average number of active Lyft drivers in each hour and the line displays the average vehicle speed across New York in each hour as per GPS technology firm Geotab. Geotab’s data shows that the worst traffic hour in New York is between 5 and 6 p.m., when the average vehicle speed is only 22 miles per hour. In contrast, the evening peak in active Lyft drivers is not till 7 to 8 p.m. This tracks with the way most riders use Lyft. Nationwide, 42% of surveyed riders say the most common way they use Lyft is to get to or from entertainment, while 18% say their most common use is to commute to and from work. As a result, Lyft’s peak hours are different from the rush hours with the worst congestion.
What fraction of cars on the road are active Lyft drivers?
The most detailed, recent data about the number of total cars on the road is from roads with tolls. We used the New York MTA’s hourly traffic counts across bridges and tunnels to investigate what fraction of cars on the road are active Lyft drivers.
We focused on the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (or Hugh L. Carey Tunnel), highlighted in blue in the map. We chose this roadway because it’s the only MTA operated bridge or tunnel connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, which are the boroughs with the most rideshare pick-ups and drop-offs.
Across all hours, Lyft vehicles make up on average 3.3% of all vehicles on the bridge. As expected, the fraction of vehicles that are Lyfts vary by day of week and time of day.
During the morning weekday rush hour, Lyft vehicles make up about 2% of all vehicles on the bridge, and during the evening weekday rush hour, Lyft vehicles make up about 1.5%. Lyft vehicles make up the greatest fraction of vehicles in the week during late nights, when traffic across the bridge is at its lowest.
The analysis illustrates that Lyft drivers have different driving patterns from personal vehicles. While there are more Lyft drivers active during rush hour than at the middle of the night, proportional to the rest of the driving population, there are far more Lyft drivers active during traditionally off-peak hours.
Conclusion
These data points are further validated by recent studies from INRIX and Transpo Group, two leading authorities in transportation and traffic. Utilizing Lyft data to examine the state of congestion in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, the reports conclude that it is not possible that Lyft is the primary contributor to the growth of congestion in these cities. Instead, INRIX points to macroeconomic drivers such as population and economic growth, a lack of housing near employment centers, and increasing e-commerce deliveries as primary contributors to congestion. In Manhattan, locations with the largest growth in Lyft activity have not had the largest decrease in average daily speeds. In Chicago, Lyft trips represent fewer than 4% of total vehicle trips. And in San Francisco, Lyft trips account for less than 1% of daily traffic along the San Mateo, Golden Gate, and Bay Bridges.
As evidenced above, policy discussions that focus intensely around the number of registered drivers can overstate the actual number of Lyft vehicles on the road. In reality, a fraction of registered drivers are active at any given time. Moreover, Lyft’s peak hours are different from the rush hour periods we associate with the most traffic. As we continue to expand mobility options and find ways to help reduce congestion, it’s important to keep in mind that the majority of vehicles on the road are still personal vehicles.
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Special thanks to my teammates Hyun Shin and Tom Buckley for their assistance on this project. If you are interested in joining Lyft, check out our jobs site.
