Examining the Impact of Ridehailing Services on Public Transit Use

Information Systems and Operations Management

Speaker : Gordon Burtch 
Assistant Professor of Information Systems & Decision Sciences (Carlson School of Management - Minnesota University)

HEC Campus - Jouy-En-Josas - Buil. V - Room Bernard Ramanantsoa

Abstract: 

We examine the impact that ridehailing services (e.g., Uber, Lyft) have had on the use of various modes of public transportation in the United States, via a city-level analysis. We first evaluate these effects by exploiting the temporally and spatially staggered entry of Uber across the United States. Recognizing that the timing and location of Uber’s entry is likely to be endogenous with respect to dynamic variables that reflect a local economic environment, we introduce a novel time-series matching procedure that can deliver plausible identification under a difference-in-differences estimation framework. Subsequently, we re-evaluate the effects by exploiting a natural experiment in which the Google Maps application incorporated Uber and Lyft services into its transit / direction recommendations. Under both identification strategies we find consistent results. Our estimates indicate that ridehailing service entry has lead to significant reductions in the utilization of road-based, short-haul public transit services (e.g., bus), yet increased utilization of rail-based and long-haul transit services (e.g., subway, commuter rail). Finally, we show that resulting cannibalization and complementarity effects are attenuated and amplified, respectively, by transit agencies’ quality of service.
 

Short Bio:

Gord is an Assistant Professor of Information & Decision Sciences and Jim & Mary Lawrence Fellow at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, as well as a Consulting Researcher with Microsoft Research NYC. His research, which focuses on the economic evaluation of information systems, employs empirical analyses rooted in econometrics and field experimentation to identify and quantify the drivers of individual participation in online social contexts. His work has been published in a variety of top tier outlets, including Management Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly. In 2014, Gord won the ISR best paper award, and in 2016 he won the ISR best reviewer award. He holds a PhD from Temple University’s Fox School of Business, as well as Bachelor of Engineering and MBA degrees from McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business.