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NDSU Student Paper Examines Influence of Transportation Network Companies on Mass Transit

Posted: Oct 24, 2019

Narendra Malalgoda a Ph.D. student in transportation and logistics at NDSU, studied whether the dramatic increase in the use of transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft was linked to significant drops in public transportation ridership. His work will be published in the December issue of Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, an international journal focused on public policy analysis, planning, management and other factors impacting all modes of passenger and freight transportation.

The paper, "Do transportation network companies reduce public transit use in the U.S." indicates that transit effectiveness which includes factors such as on-time performance, reliability, and improved service, had a much larger effect on ridership, particularly for rail transit, than competition from transportation network companies. The results were much less clear for bus transit and suggested that riders may be using flexible scooter and bicycle services instead of buses for short-distance travel.

The full paper may be read at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2019.09.051. Malalgoda is a doctoral research associate at the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at NDSU. Co-author of the paper is Siew Hoon Lim, associate professor agribusiness and applied economics at NDSU.

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