National Center for Sustainable Transportation

Emerging technologies and shared mobility services are quickly changing transportation. The popularity of these services is particularly high among millennials and those living in the dense central parts of cities. Still, the reasons behind the adoption of these services and their impacts on the use of other transportation modes and on total travel demand are largely unclear. How are shared mobility services changing transportation demand and supply? This report provides useful insights to answer this question. The research explores the use of various types of shared mobility services in California, focusing in particular on the factors affecting the adoption and frequency of use of ridehailing services (such as those provided by Uber and Lyft), and the impacts that the use of these services has on other components of travel behavior. The authors analyze a dataset that they collected with a detailed online survey in fall 2015 as the first round of data collection in a panel study of emerging transportation trends and adoption of technology in California. More than 2,000 respondents, including millennials (i.e., young adults born between 1981 and 1997) and members of Generation X (i.e., middle-aged adults born between 1965 and 1980), completed the survey.

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