The evolution, usage and trip patterns of taxis & ridesourcing services: evidence from 2001, 2009 & 2017 US National Household Travel Survey

Given the rapid adoption of ridesourcing services (RS), it is critical for transportation planners and policymakers to understand their impacts and keep policies up to date. This study contributes to the literature by using representative samples captured in the 2001, 2009 and 2017 National Household Travel Surveys to explore how taxis and ridesourcing (T/R) services have evolved and shaped people’s travel behavior pre- and post-disruption at the US national level. It characterizes and visualizes the asymmetries in demand spatially and temporally for T/R trips, showing that ridesourcing has greatly increased T/R trips from flexible and optional activity locations to home, which vary by times of day. It also characterizes tours involving T/R services, showing that while simple optional tours (such as home–recreation–home) represent the largest share of tours involving T/R, the fastest growth has been in simple mandatory tours (such as home–work–home). Tours involving T/R grew from 0.4% of all tours in 2009 to 1% of all tours in 2017, mostly within densely populated and transit-oriented regions. Although less than 1% of T/R trips involved a direct transfer to or from transit, one-third of all tours containing T/R also included transit. However, at the same time, 40% of T/R-containing tours also involved auto trip(s). Overall, this study reveals the complex relationships among their underlying sociodemographic characteristics, RS adoption and usage behavior, and daily tour patterns.