01698142

Component

Shared mobility can be serial or parallel. Serial sharing describes many new services like Lyft and Lime, while parallel shared mobility, like public transit, is more established, better for the environment, and disproportionately used by low-income travelers. This paper examines the relationships between incomes and auto access on carpooling and public transit use in the U.S. in 2017, and over time since 1995. The authors rely primarily on the national personal/household travel surveys of 1995, 2001, 2009, and 2017 to do this; these data are supplemented with public transit service and use data as well. We find that the strong relationships between income & auto access on one hand, and carpooling & transit use on the other, observed in earlier research persist in 2017 – and if any have grown more pronounced in recent years. Travelers in higher-income households make better than half-again as many trips by driving alone as those in the lowest-income households. On the other hand, travelers in the lowest income households (below $10,000/year) make between two and four times as many transit trips as higher-income travelers. While only 8.9 percent of U.S. households in 2017 were carless, residents in these households accounted for nearly half (46%) of all public transit trips. Despite increases in auto ownership and use in recent years, low-income and carless households remain disproportionately dependent on carpooling and public transit to get around, which is a powerful justification for public subsidy of these modes.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD20 Standing Committee on Social and Economic Factors of Transportation. Alternate title: Too Poor to Go It Alone? The Socio-economics of Shared Mobility in the 2010s

19-04178

English

6p

2019

Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

References

Automobile ownership; Income; Mobility; Public transit; Ridesharing; Socioeconomic factors; Vehicle sharing

Shared-use vehicle systems

Economics; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2019 Paper #19-04178

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 7 2018 9:47AM