Cities extract mobility insights from ride-hailing company data

Data sharing helps advance cities’ mobility improvement projects, but regulations will ensure privacy protections for that data, a new report finds.

By sharing data, cities can meet mobility goals such as making trips more efficient, prioritizing sustainable modes of transport and supporting a transition to zero- and low-emission vehicles, according to “Data for Environmentally Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Mobility,” a paper published in June by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the Eno Center for Transportation and the Wuppertal Institute in Germany.

For example, governments can use ridership data from app-based ride-hailing companies to understand if on-demand trips are replacing sustainable transportation options and increasing congestion and emissions. That happened in Chicago, which then introduced a tax structure for those companies in an effort to reduce traffic and encourage sustainable transit options.