Measuring the Impact of the Large-scale Adoption of Ridesharing on the Spread of Infectious Diseases

In the near future, ride-sharing vehicles are expected to serve a significant fraction of the transportation demands in cities and urban areas. In the past two decades, there has been an increased occurrence of highly infectious diseases like COVID-19 in the world. The simultaneous increase in ride-sharing penetration in the cities and the occurrence of infectious diseases around the world raise a question about the safety of ride-sharing vehicles amid an infectious disease outbreak. In this paper, the authors investigate the role of ride-sharing vehicles in the spread of COVID-19 in metropolitan areas. To this end, the authors considered a compartmental model to capture the progression of SARS-CoV-2 infections in an urban population and an agent-based simulation to capture the ride-sharing exposure to the disease. It is shown through the simulation that in the absence of any within-vehicle disease-control measures, ride-sharing can aggravate the spread of disease. Furthermore, it is shown that effective implementation of disease outbreak control measures at the ride-sharing level can almost nullify this aggravation.

• Record URL:
  https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.coecis.cornell.edu/dist/6/132/files/2016/04/USF_YR4_KWON-DAS-REINA-ORTIZ_FINAL_MEASURING-THE-IMPACT.pdf
• 
• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/56089
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  University of South Florida, Tampa

  Industrial and Management Systems Engineering, 4202 East Fowler Avenue
  Tampa, FL  United States  33620-5350

  University of South Florida, Tampa

  College of Public Health, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard
  Tampa, FL  United States  33612

  Center for Transportation, Environment, and Community Health

  Cornell University
  Ithaca, NY  United States  14853

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Paudel, Diwas
  • Melendez, Kevin A
  • Chacreton, Daniel
  • Das, Tapas K
  • Ortiz, Miguel Reina
  • Kwon, Changhyun
• Publication Date: 2021-3-21

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 27p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communicable diseases; COVID-19; Market penetration; Metropolitan areas; Ridesharing; Simulation
• Subject Areas: Highways; Passenger Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01771689
• Record Type: Publication
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747119
• Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: May 21 2021 10:54AM