Enhancing Job Access: Rideshare and Public Transit are a Winning Combination
By Johannes Hallermeier, Policy Research
What mode of transportation best supports job access in cities: public transportation or rideshare? A combination of both, finds a new study on transportation in Rio de Janeiro. When used as a complement to public transportation, rideshare expands people’s access to jobs significantly. Targeted policies could deepen these benefits; for example, through subsidized transit and rideshare fares for low-income populations, or a better integration of fares across multimodal journeys.
Drawing on aggregated data from Uber as well as public data on transit options, a team at the Brazilian Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and the University of Toronto compared travel times and costs between different locations in Rio de Janeiro in 2019. They considered three options: (1) public transit only (see Figure 1 for a map of the main transit routes); (2) ridesharing first-mile plus transit; and (3) ridesharing only. The researchers then calculated what percentage of the city’s jobs were accessible to people using different travel options–within a given travel time budget and a given financial budget.
The results are striking: rideshare increased job accessibility significantly. When comparing all travel options up to a cost of 18 BRL (approx. $4.50 USD in 2019) and a travel time of 60 minutes, for example, “the use of [rideshare] as a first-mile feeder to transit expands the average employment accessibility by approximately 61%.” Public transportation by itself quickly exceeds the time limit, and rideshare alone oftentimes comes up against the financial budget, but rideshare plus public transportation results in much greater accessibility within the given constraints.
Concretely, rideshare extends the benefits of public transit beyond fixed routes and stations. Figure 2 shows the accessibility of jobs using just transit (first column), rideshare and transit together (second column), or just rideshare (third column) at different price points. Looking at the first column, we already see significant accessibility benefits from transit accruing to people living close to transit corridors: these are the red and yellow areas roughly mirroring the transit map above, along which people enjoy relatively high levels of job accessibility.
As we can see in the second column, rideshare adds a significant ‘glow’ to these bright areas by allowing nearby residents to access a station quickly and at a relatively low cost. For example, a person living two miles away from a railway station may not have been able to complete a trip to their job within 60 minutes by relying on public transportation alone; but they would be able to do so when taking a ride with Uber to the station. As the financial budget increases (bottom rows of the middle column), this effect becomes more pronounced, with riders being able to add longer rideshare trips to their transit journeys.
In addition, rideshare by itself can facilitate short trips even within limited budgets. As the right column in the above graphic shows, job access metrics ‘light up’ in the city’s densely populated southeast as a person’s transportation budget reaches 18 BRL or 24 BRL ($4.50 or $6.00 USD in 2019), which is in line with previous research on rideshare increasing mobility. However, the combination of rideshare and transit still leads to the highest levels of job accessibility: the job accessibility maps in the middle column are brighter than in any of the other scenarios.
The researchers point out that travel by rideshare is financially out of reach for many transit riders in Rio. However, they also suggest that subsidies and a better integration of transportation options can make a difference. As the researchers propose, “fare discounts for transfers between (…) rideshare and transit trips at particular transit stations” could make multimodal trips more affordable.
To make this possibility a reality, Uber has successfully cooperated with cities and public transit agencies in Brazil and around the world–such as Rio (Metro Rio), Dallas (DART), and Florida (PSTA and Brightline), to name a few. Without having to hire drivers or buy vehicles, cities can integrate rideshare into their transportation systems or encourage riders to use rideshare to connect to transit. This allows cities to increase mobility and address first-/last-mile challenges beyond fixed-schedule and fixed-route transportation.
What’s more, Uber has steadily been adding more economical offerings to its suite of transport options, allowing riders to get to their destination at a lower price point. For example, in Brazil alone, tens of millions of rideshare trips take place on motorbikes every month, and riders can choose micromobility solutions such as shared bikes to get around. Moreover, around the world, shared products such as UberX Share are re-gaining popularity, after a hiatus induced by the Coronavirus pandemic. The result is that more and more riders are able to travel on a budget — be it to a final destination or to a public transit station that connects them elsewhere, like we already observe in Hyderabad, India.
In sum, this study draws on real-world data to validate the job accessibility benefits that can be derived from integrating public transportation and rideshare. While other cities may differ from Rio de Janeiro in important ways, the study suggests that rideshare ought to be considered a complement, not a competitor, to public transit to increase job access. Given smart policy choices and continued technological innovation, drawing on both rideshare and public transportation will enable residents of cities around the world to access jobs–as well as the many other benefits that have for so long attracted people to cities.
