In Earth’s hottest year on record, Uber was hot. The ride-sourcing company is currently valued at between $60b and $70b up from $18b in June 2014. Lyft, its main competitor in the US, grew from a valuation of around $1b to $4b to $4.5b in that time.
Helping to drive this massive growth is the data these companies collect, and their data on private passenger vehicle transportation are bigger and more detailed than any such information routinely collected before. Experts believe that this will shed light on the companies’ environmental impact, which represents a huge new source of information on how private vehicles contribute to carbon emissions, one that has the potential to show not only how customers use the services but also how policymakers will incorporate ride sharing into transport systems.
Last November, Lyft and Uber agreed to allow researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the National Resources Defense Council to access to their data and survey their customers for a major study of ride sourcing’s environmental impact. The study is the first to make major use of data from the ride-sourcing companies themselves. The researchers will use the companies’ data on how many miles their vehicles and passengers travel to understand how ride sourcing and ride splitting (carpooling through services such as Lyft Line) affect greenhouse gas emissions in an area, as well as vehicle ownership, public transit use and vehicle occupancy, among other things. This is “critical information that transportation planners, engineers and researchers need to inform transportation policy [and] build and maintain appropriate infrastructure,” says Susan Shaheen, one of the directors of the Uber-Lyft study.
Mass data collection is radically affecting many sectors and is considered a fundamental plank of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, the theme of the last World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, which took place in January. But the transportation sector in particular is an area where environmental concerns, technological advances and shared interests between private companies and public bodies coincide. Ms Shaheen notes that the data collected by Uber and Lyft are part of a larger trend within the transport sector towards mass data gathering. “We are moving toward a more data-driven transportation management system,” she says.
For many environmentalists, this is a good thing. Transport is a major source of carbon emissions—according to the UN, it accounts for 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. In developed regions like California, the percentage can reach 40 percent, and within the transportation sector, private vehicle emissions usually contribute the greatest share. The supporters of ride-sourcing companies believe that they can help reduce these figures and that their data can help them do this.
The chief argument supporting this belief is that the services can help make transport more efficient. Currently, studies show that 80 percent of seats in private passenger vehicles are empty and that 46 percent of taxi-driving time is unmetered. Ride sourcing’s promoters believe it can help reduce these numbers by encouraging carpooling.
“Ride sourcing has the greatest potential for environmental benefit, as it increases average vehicle occupancy. As its popularity grows, it has the potential to group travellers into common trips, thus reducing vehicle miles travelled and greenhouse gas emissions,” Ms Shaheen says.
The companies’ data can potentially facilitate this. In theory, the data collection could allow Uber and Lyft to identify the factors that incline people to choose to ride-split rather than ride-source and try to promote those conditions. Other environmentalists suggest ride-sharing data might be used to positively shape consumer behavior.
“Uber can offer their customers a system where they see—this month, this year—this is how many miles you’ve driven, this is the emissions, this is the cost,” says Paul Simpson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project. This would require only a simple extension of features already present in the Uber and Lyft apps that show the vehicle miles travelled in the bills for previous trips. Consumers might start moderating their use of transportation based on when demand is highest and when they might use other alternatives, similar to how personalized energy-use monitors like Nest allowed people to tailor their home heating to save money and fuel.
But while scientists and environmentalists are just starting to make use of their data, Uber and Lyft have already begun using it to shape how they are perceived by consumers and public officials. The companies have so far developed very different data-sharing strategies, but in both cases, the companies’ use of their data feeds into an image of themselves fixing social and environmental problems as well as making profits.
So far, Lyft has been far more proactive in seeking collaboration with government. The company now actively advertises itself as a service that can cover the “first” and “last mile” between users’ residences and the public transportation system during the daily commute. The company now has a Transport Policy unit, which sets up partnerships with public transport authorities.
“We wholeheartedly see ourselves as a complement to public transit, and the data we’ve seen is a really encouraging piece of that story,” says Tommy Hayes, a transportation policy manager at Lyft. “Our philosophy is to have a very collaborative relationship with the public sector.”
After an analysis of pickup and drop-off locations, accompanied by a customer survey, revealed that 25 percent used Lyft to connect to public transit, the company launched what it calls its Friends With Transit initiative, which helps visualize how passengers are using Lyft in coordination with public transportation.
The data produced is used by both customers and officials. Lyft has also worked on individualised projects with single agencies, creating, for example, an anonymised heat map of its ridership for the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. The map is meant to help the agency plan how to most efficiently connect people to the county’s public transportation network and then plan funding and infrastructure accordingly.
“We’re all trying to create better cities, and where the public sector is charged with environmental stewardship, we are a very willing and ready partner to figure out how our role can be positive,” says Mr Hayes.
It is probably not surprising that Uber has been less enthusiastic in working with governments on data sharing. The company, known for its acrimonious battles with regulators around the world (a number of which are ongoing), shares little data with public authorities beyond what it’s legally required to do by law. However, Uber has recently started to do some data work publicly on its blog, Under the Hood.
Intended to contribute to the discussion surrounding the regulation and general role of ride-sourcing services, the blog’s space is open to outside researchers and users invited by Uber to post. But it also features some work done by Uber analysts on the company’s internal data. For example, Uber has posted about how much CO2 was saved by its users taking UberPool in San Francisco instead of single-passenger vehicles.
Lyft and Uber clearly stand to gain in public approval through the sharing of their data, but green-washing their achievements remains a concern. And while many do see the potential for these companies and the data they collect to help reduce emissions, some environmentalists are still skeptical for now.
“The ability to track environmental performance is great and can be a revolution,” says Mr Simpson. However, “the jury’s still out on whether these companies will have a positive environmental impact”. Like many others, Mr Simpson thinks the positive developments coming from the companies have to be weighed against ride sourcing’s potential for negative environmental impact, which the data might unearth.
In 2014, Ms Shaheen ran a different investigation into the effects of ride sourcing that surveyed users without the help of Uber or Lyft. Her findings showed that 8 percent of ride sharers said they would not have taken a ride if ride sourcing was not available. While not exactly new in California at the time, ride sourcing has certainly grown and changed since the study was performed, and this percentage may have grown or shrunk. But Ms Shaheen notes that 8 percent was already not insignificant, and if the new data shows that the percentage of induced travellers has risen or differs between urban environments, it could be a mark against the companies’ environmental claims.
Similarly, some have also raised concerns about the fuel efficiency of the vehicles used by the ride-sourcing services. If many of the cars being brought on the road as ride-sourcing taxis—instead of remaining parked and idle—should prove to be less fuel-efficient, this could mean more emissions.
So far, it is difficult to say whether these worries are well founded. Uber and Lyft have not released data on the fuel efficiency of their fleets, although vehicle registration numbers are usually reported to city transportation authorities, which could allow someone to estimate the service’s average fuel efficiency based on the vehicles’ average age. In any case, environmentalists like Simpson think the companies ought to be doing more on this.
Ultimately, a lot of uncertainty remains as to what the data being collected and now shared by Uber and Lyft will show. It is possible it will reveal a reduction in journeys and emissions and also facilitate cleaner, more efficient transport systems. But it is also possible the data will show the companies are inducing people to make more private vehicle trips than they would otherwise.
“The data will show what the data will show”, says Matt Daus, a former New York City taxi commissioner and distinguished lecturer at the City University of New York’s Transportation Research Center, “The good, the bad and the neutral”.
The huge amounts of data now being collected by ride-sourcing companies can give a better picture of the environmental impact of their vehicle usage, but it may not necessarily be one they like. Then the question will be whether they continue to share or not.
This post was produced in collaboration with Pro Journo, a global business journalism incubator.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.
