Ridesharing Equity: the Role of Ridesharing in Providing Access to Employment – A Case Study of Toronto, Canada

In rapidly-growing metropolitan regions, it is crucial that transportation-related policies and infrastructure are designed to ensure that everyone gets to participate in economic, social, and civil opportunities. Since the introduction of ridesharing in the City of Toronto, Canada, these services are thought to have the potential to improve job access for disadvantaged populations as well as for everyone. Using Toronto as a case study, this paper employs a generalized cost measure in a multi-modal accessibility analysis to assess the role of ridesharing in providing job access to carless households and to disadvantaged areas of the city. Ridesharing is analyzed both as a mode of commute and as a feeder to the transit network (a first-mile solution). The results indicate that there are two main determinants of the extent to which ridesharing provides additional accessibility over transit: the transit level of service at the origin zone and the zone’s proximity to employment opportunities. The ridesharing mode proves to increase accessibility especially to closer destinations (jobs), with the highest improvement seen in the city’s outer suburbs. On the other hand, integrating ridesharing with public transit does little to improve access to jobs. Compared to the rest of the city, disadvantaged areas experience a higher accessibility percent improvement from ridesharing but not from integration. Nonetheless, job accessibility for carless households remains lower in disadvantaged areas than in other areas – even after the introduction of ridesharing.

• Record URL:
  https://annualmeeting.mytrb.org/OnlineProgram/Details/15658
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP020 Standing Committee on Innovative Public Transportation Services and Technologies.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Abdelwahab, Bilal
  • Shalaby, Amer
  • Palm, Matthew
  • Farber, Steven
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2021-1-5 to 2021-1-29
• Date: 2021

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Case studies; Employment; Equity; Ridesharing
• Geographic Terms: Toronto (Canada)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01763555
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: TRBAM-21-03830
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 4 2021 10:54AM