Half of Uber, Lyft Trips Replace More Sustainable Options

Published in Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, the study analyzed data collected among riders in three metropolitan regions — the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Los Angeles and Orange counties — between Nov. 2018 and Nov. 2019. The data set consisted of 7,333 ride-hailing trips by 2,458 respondents.

About 47% of the trips replaced a public transit, carpool, walking or cycling trip. An additional 5.8% of trips represented “induced travel,” meaning the person would not have made the trip were an Uber or Lyft unavailable. This suggests ride-hailing often tends to replace most sustainable transportation modes and leads to additional vehicle miles traveled.